R.R. Chope

CHOPE, Richard Robert. b. 21 September 1830; d. 29 May 1928. He received his education at Exeter College, Oxford (BA 1855). A year later he took Holy Orders and became curate of Holy Trinity, Stapleton, north east of Bristol, whose new Gothic church, built by John Norton, was opened in 1857. Although Chope was at Stapleton for no more than two years, his interest in the activities of the church choir there, the current enthusiasm for hymn-singing, and the publication of new hymnbooks, encouraged him to compile a new hymnal, the Congregational Hymn and Tune Book (Bristol, 1857). This book, consisting of 138 hymns, appeared with no preface containing acknowledgements in its First Edition, but...