Jeboult, Harold

Singer

Collection date:

Area: Somerset - Taunton District

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Harold Arthur Jeboult ARCM, FRCO (1871-1925) was organist and choirmaster at St Mary’s Taunton. He came from a modest background – his father was a dealer in old furniture in Taunton - but his mother Henrietta was the daughter of Samuel Summerhayes, musician. Harold was a good all-round musician, writing glees for the town’s Madrigal Society and music for the newly-formed Taunton Amateur Operatic Society (Taunton Courier 2 Feb 1901).

Sharp would definitely have made Jeboult's acquaintance during his several visits to the town. When Henry Hammond collected a clutch of songs in Somerset in 1905, he confessed in a letter to Lucy Broadwood (HAM/5/37/3) that he was 'not musician enough' to set the tunes (tempo and barring) but could 'take down ... the right notes and give them value'. He added that the tunes were 'submitted to Mr Jeboult for revision'. Jeboult's name was indeed credited in several entries to the Journal of the Folk Song Society in 1905.

Harold Jeboult was born in 1871, eldest son of Edward and Henrietta Jeboult. Edward died in 1893. Harold never married and died on 16/7/1925 in Taunton.