The Qs in War Cloister
The British Choral Tradition - then and now
Written by Malcolm Archer, Director of Chapel Music
The Choral Foundation here at Winchester
College dates back over 600 years to the time
of the founding of the College by William of
Wykeham, and many of our collegiate chapels
and cathedrals have a choral foundation
going back at least as long as ours. It is a
remarkable aspect of British history and
something which is admired throughout
the world. Yet why were these foundations
established, and what is their lasting legacy?
but also places of teaching. Boys were not
only provided with a musical training, but
were also given a wider education at a time
when good schooling was hard to find.
William of Wykeham realised this only too
well, and in setting up the College with its
Foundation of Scholars, he allowed for 16
Quiristers to sing in Chapel. Though there
have been times (especially in the nineteenth
century) when the conditions for the boys
were lamentable and numbers were low, the
Quiristers (the ancient name for choristers)
have survived at Winchester, being the only
public school to have retained its ancient
choral foundation. It is very fitting that
many of our young singers (Quiristers
and Chapel Choir members alike) go on
to university choral scholarships; surely
something of which Wykeham would have
approved, since he also founded our sister
foundation at New College, Oxford.
Some of our foundations are pre-reformation,
and in the case of somewhere like Wells
Cathedral, formerly Catholic, boys were
singing on that site 1000 years ago. In other
places the choral foundations were established
to augment the tradition of daily singing
by the monks, and that tradition of singing
the office survived the upheavals of Henry
VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, and
Cromwell’s Commonwealth. In all cases, these
foundations were not only places of worship
3