Cuthbert H Cronk was organist at St. Johns, Tunbridge Wells, for 50 years. The following article, also included in the September 2007 Newsletter, was written by our organist in August 2007 and explains why Turvey Church Choir is interested in C H Cronk's music. Unfortunately his music is very difficult to come by - if you have any copies of any of his pieces we might borrow we would be very greatful!
A CRONK PILGRIMAGE
By Paul Edwards
This all began when my great friends James and Sarah Stephenson, parents of my godson and members of St. Paul's Church, Bedford, where I was organist in the 1990s, showed me a copy of their parish magazine a couple of years ago. In this had been reprinted the services and music list from 100 years previously. The Choir was to sing the Communion Service to "CRONK IN D". Now, I have always had a liking for unusual names, not to mention a great interest in composers of church and organ music of times past, but the name Cronk was quite unknown to me in either aspect. I consulted my directories, and found Livesey Carrott, Harry Crackel, Edwin A. Crusha, even Oliphant Chuckerbutty - but no Cronk. As a last resort I consulted the 62-volume British Library Catalogue, and found to my delight the name Cuthbert H.Cronk and ten works listed, including the Communion Service in D, opus 1, 1894. I had no knowledge of his dates or his whereabouts, so the next step was the Ancestry Library facility. Sure enough, Cuthbert was there, with his seven unmarried sisters, the only son of Henry Hickman Cronk, Architect and sometime Mayor of Tunbridge Wells. I then discovered a few references to Cronk, either H.B. or E.E., in Pevsner's The Buildings of England - mainly in Kent. The next step was to have a look at some of his published music in the British Library.
Rules in the British Library are strict. Pencils only - no cameras or photo copying - so I wrote out four movements of the Communion in D so that at least I could play his music to my friends - the copies in St. Paul's Choir library having long since disappeared. There the matter rested, as none of his works were available from publishers, no archive copy having survived, and apart from ascertaining Cuthbert's dates - 1867-1944 - the trail went cold.
Earlier this year, I was looking in the choir library room in Turvey Church for copies of the Benedicite (which we sing at Mattins in Lent). At eye level, in the first cupboard I opened, was a brown paper parcel, tied with string. To my astonishment, what should it be but a set of copies of CRONK IN D Communion! This is an extraordinary chance, as there are literally hundreds of settings by Victorian composers. Most of them much more famous, and the parcel - dated October 1923 - was duly taken out at the next choir practice and ceremoniously unwrapped by the junior choir-girls. I asked the choir if they would sing through the Agnus Dei, and we found it to be absolutely beautiful. I determined that we would perform it on Good Friday evening, and we invited the Stephensons to join us.
On my next visit to the British Library, I wrote out a short anthem by Cronk, to the words of John Newton, "May the grace of Christ our Saviour" which we have sung a few times already. Spurred on by this, David Nightingale and I decided that we would go to Tunbridge Wells on a Cronk Pilgrimage, to find out more about this otherwise unknown musician and his family. So it was that on 8th August we made the journey by train - and a very pleasant one it was, changing at London Bridge. First stop was the town centre parish church of St. John's, where we were made very welcome by the lady in the church office. She gave us a copy of the church guide, and leaflets about the organ and the stained glass, and showed us round the building. It is a fine Victorian building, ordered for a more modern evangelical style of worship, but still retaining a large 3-manual organ. Affixed to this we found a brass plaque to our hero, who served as Organist there for exactly 50 years, from 1893 to the year before his death. The guide book made mention of his skills as a choir-trainer. There was also a plaque to his uncle, the wondrously named Egbert Cronk, who was Churchwarden for 30 years, and was in partnership with Henry H. as an architect. The latter designed the splendid tower, with stair-turret, which was added to St. John's in the 1890s. We also found a photograph of John Bird Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had consecrated the original church in 1858 - more of him later. Cuthbert H. Cronk had written a festival anthem for the church's jubilee in 1908, which was highly admired.
Our second port-of-call - having paused to view the street "Mount Ephraim" where the Cronks lived all their lives - was the only church to have been designed entirely by Henry H. Cronk - St. Peter's (1874-5). This is quite some way from the town centre and as we stopped at a junction to consult the map, a man on a bicycle stopped on the other side of the road and called across to us. Quite how he guessed that we were bound for the church I shall never know, but having told us that the Vicar was away but that he had a key to the church, he cycled on ahead, and when we arrived sure enough the man was there tidying the lawn. St. Peter's has a very tall spire but a fairly ordinary exterior otherwise. Inside, we found a very tall nave, without aisles, and a tremendous roof of black-painted carved beams and white panels. We got chatting with the man, and in course of conversation found that he had lived in Bedford in his childhood, being an orphan in war-time, and growing up in the Dr. Barnardo's Home in Cardington Road. He was keen to show David the bell-tower, and to bewail the fact that they have only 5 ringers, although 8 bells. In the meantime, David had found another brass plaque, this time to Sydney Bevan (1838-1901). Nothing apparently remarkable, you might think however, his only published composition was a Psalm-chant in A flat, named 'Trent" after his family's home near Cockfosters (of Underground Railways fame) which we sing regularly at Turvey, to the Venite or Magnificat. He was the eldest of 16, and it appears that he lived in Tunbridge Wells for the last decade of his life, and worshipped regularly at St. Peter's.
As if these coincidences were not enough, at the last road-junction before the station on our way back what should be the name of the Pub on the corner but "THE BEDFORD". Now for the most amazing part of all. James Stephenson and his younger son both have as one of their Christian names "Sumner". They are directly descended from Charles Richard Sumner, Bishop of Winchester, and brother of the above-mentioned Archbishop by whom Cronk's church was dedicated. We returned on a late afternoon train, somewhat bemused by the astonishing sequence of apparent coincidences which we had witnessed. A priest friend of mine calls these things "God-incidences", and certainly the sequence of events which I have related above do seem to go far beyond mere chance. Last but not least, had the Communion Service back in 1904 or 1905 at St. Paul's been by someone with an ordinary sort name, none of this would have come about. At least now we can ensure that Cronk’s name and music is not forgotten entirely.