22 February 1946 – 7 May 2025
Garry Humphreys ALA, FGMS, FRSA – baritone, conductor, writer, researcher, and business librarian – was born in Nottingham and grew up in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. He was adopted at birth, by the couple with whom his birth mother, a Welsh nursing WAAF, lodged with during the Second World War when based at Hucknall Aerodrome. In the 1990s he sought out his mother; she had died but he met his half-sister, with whom he remained in contact.
In 2022, DNA testing unexpectedly uncovered the identity of his birth father, a Scotsman who served in the RAF as ground crew in the Second World War and had been brought back to England to be treated by Archibald McIndoe, after being injured in the V2 bombing of Deurne airfield near Antwerp in October 1944. Finding his father enabled Garry to discover three more half-siblings, all living in Australia, who readily welcomed him into their family.
In the mid-1960s, Garry toyed with the idea of going to theological college to train for ordination into the Anglican priesthood, but, after attending an ordination taster course in Sheffield, he felt that he was unsuitable and gave this ambition up in favour of attending library school at the North Western Polytechnic. He was a librarian for 39 years, in 1988 becoming the City Business Librarian for the Corporation of London, and in 1998, was a recipient of the Library Association Royal Charter Centenary Medal, awarded for ‘outstanding contribution to and achievement in library work’, which was presented to him by Princess Anne.
His main passion however was music, and he had a second career as a professional baritone which his library career helped him sustain. He gave over 60 years of his life to singing in church choirs, starting aged eight at his local parish church of St Mary Magdalene, Hucknall. This gave him a taste for church music and the accompanying ceremonial, partly thanks to his friendship with the eventual director of music, Norman Silcock, a blind organist and composer.
As an adult, he sang in the choirs of a number of London churches, including St George’s, Hanover Square; The Temple Church (under George Thalben-Ball); St Vedast, Foster Lane (as part of a two-person ‘choir’ with Donald Storer); as a lay clerk at Southwark Cathedral; and deputising at St Paul’s Cathedral and elsewhere. He later sang at Christ Church, Southgate, a North London church with a fine musical tradition. He was a Friend of the Royal School of Church Music throughout his life, having attended RSCM summer courses at Addington Palace from the mid-1960s to ‘70s, and was also a member of the Church Music Society.
He studied singing with Norman Platt, Nigel Rogers and, principally, John Carol Case, who was renowned as Christus in the Bach Passions, and became a lifelong friend. He appeared as a soloist in concerts, recitals and broadcasts, and as a member of various professional and semi-professional ensembles, including the Tilford Bach Festival Choir, conducted by Denys Darlow and for whose other ensembles, including the Bath Bach Choir, he also sang; the Hampstead Choral Society; the Exultate Singers; the Thomas Tallis Society; and more, through which he made many long-lasting connections.
Not limited to just music, he performed words and music anthology entertainments with the Hardwick Players, alongside Richard Pasco, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Nicholas Parsons and others. He had a fine speaking as well as singing voice, and took up work as a narrator and presenter, frequently giving presentations on behalf of the London branch of the Elgar Society, of which he was a founder-member.
He was branch secretary of the Elgar Society, served on the local and national committees, but resigned from the Society in 1999 when he objected to conductor Vernon Handley being overlooked for appointment as President of the Society. In 1986, he gave a presentation called ‘The Man Who Writes Tunes: a portrait in words and music of the composer Eric Coates’ in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, on the centenary of the birth of Coates, with the actor Robin Bailey voicing him, as Hucknall was the home town of all three of them.
Garry’s dedication to the promotion and revival of English song remained a constant in his life. He was chairman of the English Song Award (1980s), secretary of the Association of English Singers and Speakers (1988-95) and joint editor, with Michael Pilkington, of A Century of English Song, a series aiming to make available in practical performing editions distinctive British songs of the last hundred years. His song recitals with the pianist Patricia Williams also revived much unjustifiably forgotten English song. He continued to give lectures and lecture recitals to music societies, with titles such as ‘A Carol is Not Just For Christmas’ and ‘Elgar and Germany’.
He had been a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts since 1976 and was a Fellow of the Guild of Musicians and Singers, as well as an Emeritus Member of the Incorporated Society of Musicians and member of several music societies for English composers. He was a past trustee of the British Music Society charitable trust, which was formed to encourage and fund recordings and performances of the work of English composer Michael Hurd.
He studied conducting in the 1980s with Bryan Fairfax, a conductor very much in the tradition of Sir Adrian Boult and this led to, amongst other things, him becoming a guest conductor (2002-3) for the Broadheath Singers, which specialised in reviving neglected English music. He was greatly influenced by the economical conducting style of Boult, with whom he had corresponded since he was a schoolboy and met on several occasions, and of Vernon ‘Tod’ Handley, who was a pupil of Boult. Garry had his conducting batons, which were long and weighted at the bulb, specially made in the same style as Boult’s.
Later in life, he concentrated on writing concert programme and CD notes, alongside regular arts and music reviews for the Church Times and elsewhere. For 12 years, until it became wholly digital, he wrote obituaries, mostly musical, for the Independent newspaper, but also had obituaries published in various music journals, including the Strad.
He was erudite, with a knowledge of classical music that was prodigious, and was constantly researching, often sharing his knowledge generously with others to alert them to things he thought might interest them. In particular, he had a long-term dedication to researching and writing about the life and music of the English composer Arthur Somervell, encouraging performances and recordings of his lesser known choral and orchestral works, and considered this project his life’s work.
His interests were wide ranging. In the 1980s, he took a radio production course at Morley College and from 1983-85 was a DJ for University College Hospital Radio. He was also an early member of the Printing Historical Society. Other interests included heritage, architecture, campaigning, current affairs, walking and academic dress, an interest of long-standing that he pursued as a member of the Burgon Society.
Written by Linda Fullick