John Ewington
Insurance underwriter who championed church musicians
JOHN EWINGTON, who has died aged 79, was a specialist in the insurance of musical instruments and, for more than 30 years, general secretary of the Guild of Church Musicians.
During his time the Guild, which was founded in 1888 to support church musicians, emerged from being a predominantly Anglican body to being an ecumenical one when, in its centenary year, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster joined the Archbishop of Canterbury as patron.
He also raised the Guild’s profile by helping to arrange Dame Mary Archer’s appointment as president and by bringing the Archbishops’ Certificate in Church Music, which had been administered by the Guild since 1961, under the aegis of Canterbury Christ Church University.
Ewington campaigned enthusiastically for better pay for church musicians. In 2004, when John Scott’s departure from St Paul’s Cathedral for St Thomas’s Church, New York, caused much hand-wringing, Ewington told The Daily
Telegraph: “The Church of England has always wanted to get its church music on the cheap. They think they are paying you well with £300 or £400 a year and if you say that you might be worth more, they bring out the old story about ‘doing it for God’.”
John Ewington was born at Goodmayes, Essex, on May 14 1936, the younger of two sons of a Customs and Excise officer. During the war his father served in the Royal Navy while John and his brother were evacuated to Devon. Returning to Essex, he joined the choir of All Saints, Goodmayes, began taking piano lessons and fell under the spell of the organ.
He played for his first service at All Saints on Christmas Day 1952, and a few months later conducted the choir in Stainer’s The
Crucifixion. By this time he had left his technical college in Essex and was working as an insurance underwriter in the City.
Called up for National Service with the Royal Navy, Ewington was posted to
Barbican at Rosyth, where was offered the choice of being a stoker or a chef. He chose the former, which he soon regretted. Relief came when, stationed at Chatham, he volunteered to work in the chaplain’s office, where his duties included playing the organ for parade services.
Returning to the City he joined Gibbs Hartley Cooper, an insurance broker, and was soon specialising in underwriting musical instruments. His musical and City career converged when he was appointed director of music at St Mary Woolnoth, opposite the Bank of England.
He was later at St Katharine Cree, in Leadenhall Street, and from 1974 until his death was conductor of the City Singers. At home in Surrey he was organist at Bletchingley parish church for 30 years, later saying that he left because of the poor pay, although contemporaries recall a dispute with the vicar.
Ewington was a frequent contributor to The Daily
Telegraph’s letters page, arguing that the demise of hymn singing in school assemblies was depriving primary age children of a grounding in music (2006), advocating harsh penalties for drink driving (2007) and bemoaning the dearth of happy events in The Archers (2014).
He retired from the Guild some years ago, but returned to help it though a difficult patch and continued to organise its annual conference.
His final contribution was writing an obituary for
Laudate, the Guild’s magazine, of Scott, who predeceased him by three days.
John Ewington, who was appointed OBE in 1996, married Nancy Cook, a chorister at All Saints, Goodmayes, in 1959. That marriage was dissolved and in 1967 he married Hélène Leach, a chorister at St Paul’s, Goodmayes, who survives him with their two sons. John Ewington, born May 14 1936, died August 15 2015