Henry George Bonavia Hunt

Henry George Bonavia Hunt (1847 - 1917) was the founder of the Trinity College of Music in London, one of the most prestigious international conservatoires of music and examining institutions in the world.

He was a British subject born in Malta. His father, William, was engaged there as private secretary/lay vicar to the Bishop of Jerusalem. His grandfather, also William, born 1790 from Sutton in Suffolk, was a brush maker.

His surname was originally Hunt; Bonavia was a family name that was inserted as a forename as it had been his mother's maiden name. Henry Hunt's mother, originally Marietta, but later Mary, was Maltese and the daughter of a doctor of Italian extraction. Hunt became known in later times as Bonavia-Hunt and by the time his son, Noel Aubrey Bonavia-Hunt (b. 1883), was writing vast quantities on the subject of the organ between 1910 and 1960, the family name was established as 'Bonavia-Hunt'.

Hunt was ordained in the Church of England in 1878. At first he was a curate in Surrey and later became Warden of Trinity. He was a member of the Oxford University (Christ Church) Alumni list. He appears there as 'arm', ie., having a recognised family coat of arms.

Trinity College of Music

In 1872 Hunt founded an organisation that was at first known as the Church Choral Society and it had as its object the promotion of higher standards of church music, within the background of the Oxford Movement. Hunt had been studying Law up until that time. He engaged the help of a number of organists and choirmasters, including E. J. Hopkins, Goss and Richard Willing (later of All Saints' Margaret Street). By the following year, 1873, the Society had become known as the College of Church Music and a system of examinations (the first forerunners of the LTCL and FTCL) was in place. In 1876 the college was incorporated as Trinity College of Music. In 1878 a further development was the foundation of the Masonic Lodge Trinity College Lodge No. 1765 of the United Grand Lodge of England. This was the beginning TCM's long association with freemasonry. William Gladstone was involved in the College in its early years.

Hunt was known in his time for his extraordinary powers of focus and for his organisational ability. His writings were published and are still available through archives and he was a regular correspondent to the Musical Times over the years. He studied at Oxford and at also took a degree from Trinity College Dublin. He was also a composer and a lecturer for London University (of which Trinity became a College thanks to his early efforts towards establishing a chair in music).

The Trinity College of Music has recently moved to buildings of unparalleled beauty and historical importance (the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich). There is an integral partnership with the distinguished dance school, Laban. Further, the College now owns the Blackheath Concert Halls nearby. The Rev'd Hunt would be astonished to see how his Trinity College of Music, which began as a simple Church Music Society, has grown and flourished, thanks to a long succession of able and energetic principals.

Bonavia Hunt's memory

The old buildings of the Trinity College of Music, 11 - 13 Mandeville Place, W1, is a place where the ghost of the Rev'd Hunt has been seen many times over the years, particularly on the first floor corridor. A portrait of Hunt used to hang in a strange garret at the top of old Trinity College of Music, London; it was also home to one of the college organs. His memory has faded. Even the very most senior of the grand old men and women who stand in the ranks of Trinity's distinguished retired professors cannot remember anyone who remembered him, and few among the undergraduates at Trinity are aware of his significance.