Redhead, Richard

Composer

b Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middlesex 1820, d Hellingly, Hailsham, Sussex 1901. At 9 years old he became a boy chorister at Magdalen Coll Oxford; while still only 19 he was invited by Frederick Oakeley (qv) to be organist at Margaret Chapel, London (later All Saints’ Margaret St). For some 25 years they worked together to renew the music of the weekly and daily church services there in a Tractarian (Anglocatholic) direction, establishing a prototype surpliced choir; he edited Laudes Diurniae, the first English Psalter using Gregorian chant. Like his vicar, Redhead was committed to the second and more ritual-centred phase of the ‘Oxford movement’ launched by Keble (qv). He compiled several books of music for parish and cathedral use, the most notable being Ancient Hymn Melodies and Other Church Tunes (1859). In 1864 he was appointed organist of St Mary Magdalene’s, Paddington, W London, remaining in that post for 30 years. Because his collections combined his own tunes with others, including those of chiefly antiquarian interest, some have been mistakenly attributed to him. Nos.193, 705.