Epilogue on "The Old 100th", Op. 37

Ernest Bristow Farrar was born in Lewisham, London in July 1885, but moved in 1887 to Micklefield in Yorkshire, where his father was a clergyman. The rest of his life was very much centred in the North of England, which had a thriving concert and recital tradition, particularly at the turn of the century.

During his youth he attended Leeds Grammar School, a few years after the composer John Ireland, and passed his Associateship Diploma of the Royal College of Organists in 1903. In 1904, he became an unattached member of Durham University, a connection which apparently lasted until 1915-16, although there is little evidence of what work he completed; music degrees were often taken through correspondence-type courses at this time.

He studied with Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Sir Walter Parratt. He also took up several posts as organist in Dresden, South Shields and Christ Church, High Harrogate. At Harrogate, he worked closely with Julian Clifford. In 1913, he married Olive Mason in South Shields. His best man at the wedding was Ernest Bullock.

His career was cut short by the outbreak of World War I, as he enlisted in the Grenadier Guards in 1915 and joined the regiment in August 1916. He was commissioned as Second Lieutenant, 3rd Battalion Devonshire Regiment on 27 February 1918.

Farrar was killed on the Western Front at the Battle of Epehy Ronssoy, near Le Cateau in the Somme Valley south, west of Cambrai, in 1918. He had been at the front for two days.

His grave lies just outside the churchyard wall in Ronssoy Communal Cemetery Extension, in a corner under a few trees.

Stanford, writing in the Durham University Journal wrote:

Farrar was one of my most loyal and devoted pupils. He was very shy, but full of poetry, and I always thought very high things of him as a composer, and lamented his loss both personally and artistically.

The score is attached below, as well as several photos of Ernest Farrar.

FULL NOTES given in the FIRST COMMENT.