Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/80

   GAUNT, SIMON (d. 1315), bishop of Salisbury. [See .]

GAUNTLETT, HENRY (1762–1833), divine, was born at Market Lavington, Wiltshire, on 15 March 1762, and educated at the grammar school of West Lavington, under the care of the Rev. Mr. Marks. After leaving school he was idle for some years, till, by the advice of the Rev. Sir James Stonehouse, he decided to enter the established church, and after three years' preparation was ordained in 1786, and became curate of Tilshead and Imber, villages about four miles distant from Lavington. He remained in this neighbourhood, adding to his income by taking pupils, till 1800, when he married Arabella, the daughter of Edward Davies, rector of Coychurch, Glamorganshire, and removed to the curacy of Botley, near Southampton. He left Botley in 1804 for the curacy of Wellington, Shropshire, which he occupied for a year, and then took charge of a chapel at Reading, Berkshire, not under episcopal jurisdiction. In two years' time he removed to the curacy of Nettlebed and Pishill, Oxfordshire, and thence in 1811 to Olney, Buckinghamshire. In 1815 the vicar of Olney died, and Gauntlett obtained the living, which he held till his death in 1833. Gauntlett was a close friend of Rowland Hill, and an important supporter of the evangelical revival in the English church, in company with his predecessors at Olney, John Newton and Thomas Scott. He published several sermons during his lifetime, and in 1821 ‘An Exposition of the Book of Revelation,’ 8vo, which rapidly passed through three editions, and brought its author the sum of 700l. The second edition contained a letter in refutation of the opinion of ‘Basilicus,’ published in the ‘Jewish Expositor,’ that during the millennium Christ would personally reign. In 1836 the Rev. Thomas Jones published an abridgment of this entitled ‘The Interpreter; a Summary View of the Revelation of St. John … founded on … H. Gauntlett's Exposition,’ &c., 12mo. After Gauntlett's death a collection of his sermons, in two volumes 8vo, (1835), was published, to which a lengthy memoir by his daughter Catherine is prefixed. The appendix reprints portions of a rare work upon the career of John Mason of Water Stratford, Buckinghamshire, and thirty-eight letters written by William Cowper to Teedon [see under, 1731–1800]. Gauntlett published several collections of hymns for his parishioners. His son Henry John, the composer, is noticed below.

 GAUNTLETT, HENRY JOHN (1805–1876), composer, was born at Wellington, Shropshire, on 9 July 1805. His father, the Rev. Henry Gauntlett, who is noticed above, became in 1815 vicar of Olney, Buckinghamshire. The elder Gauntlett promised the congregation that if they would subscribe for an organ he would provide an organist from among his own children, intending to make two of his daughters play together. His son, then aged nine, undertook, by the time the organ was put up, to be able to play it. In a few weeks his promise was fulfilled, and he was regularly installed. He held the post for ten years. In order to celebrate the accession of George IV, he got up a performance of the ‘Messiah,’ first copying out all the parts, and training all the singers himself. He was at first educated with a view to taking orders. When he was about sixteen his father took him to London to see Crotch and Attwood, who were impressed by his musical powers. Attwood, then organist of St. Paul's, wished to take Gauntlett as his pupil and eventual successor. Unfortunately his father objected, and after a short sojourn in Ireland as tutor in a private family, he was in 1826 articled for five years to a solicitor in London. Soon after he was appointed organist of a church in or near Gray's Inn, at 60l. a year, and in 1827 became organist of St. Olave's, Southwark. In due time he became a solicitor, and practised successfully for fifteen years. He never lost an opportunity of gaining experience as an organist, and to that end applied to Samuel Wesley for instruction. From him he received many traditions of the older school, among others the original tempi of many of Handel's works. In 1836 he accepted the post of evening organist at Christ Church, Newgate, at a salary of two guineas a year! At this time he began that agitation in favour of enlarging the compass of the pedals of the organ which ended in the universal adoption of the ‘CCC’ organs throughout the country. On Mendelssohn's earlier visits to England no organ had been found on which the more elaborate works of Bach could be played. Gauntlett went to see the organ at Haarlem, and on his return was 