William Croft

CROFT, William. b. Nether Ettington, Warwickshire, 1678 (baptized 30 December); d. Bath, 14 August 1727. He served as a chorister in the Chapel Royal under John Blow, and in 1700 became a Gentleman Extraordinary, and later organist, of that institution. On Blow’s death in 1708 Croft succeeded him as Composer and Master of the Children. In the same year he also succeeded Blow as organist of Westminster Abbey. From 1700 to 1712 he was also organist of St Anne’s, Soho. In 1713 Croft was awarded the degree of DMus at Oxford, on submission of two odes (‘Laurus cruentas’ and ‘With noise of cannon’) celebrating the Treaty of Utrecht. In 1724 he published a two-volume collection of his church...