Author: Tans'ur, William Le
Biography:
LE TANS'UR, William (1700-83: Grove)
He was born in 1700 but baptised on 6 Nov. 1706 at Dunchurch, Warwickshire, the son of Edward Tanzer/Tanser (1652-1712), a labourer, and his wife Joan Alibone (1661-1712), who had married on 14 Jul. 1685 at Dilhorne, Staffordshire. A brother, John, was baptised in 1704 but there clearly must have been earlier issue. Such a late baptism is unusual but the portrait in The Psalm-Singer’s Jewel (1760) gives his age as 60 and that in The Elements of Music Displayed (1772) as 70 in 1770, and his burial record further supports this. His parents both died in 1712 and it is not known who brought him up or why he altered his surname but he seems to have become a teacher of Psalmody from early youth, leading an often itinerant existence, with records of him in various towns in Surrey, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, and Hertfordshire, before he finally settled in St. Neots, Cambridgeshire, for the last years of his life. He married Elizabeth Butler on 20 May 1730 at Ewell, Surrey. They had at least two sons and a daughter. His wife died at Ware, Hertfordshire, on 9 Jan. 1767 aged 58. He died at St. Neots on 7 Oct. 1783 aged 83, recorded as a bookbinder, and was buried there in the east end of the churchyard two days later. There is a good discussion of his musical work by Nicholas Temperley (Grove) and although the earlier works lie outside the scope of this database, melody and hymnody were always linked to (sacred) poetry. His late work, The Beauties of Poetry (Cambridge 1776), contains many of his own poems, including "The Bookseller’s Shop" (172-175). (Grove; ODNB 22 Jul. 2021; ancestry.co.uk 22 Jul. 2021 ; findmypast.co.uk 22 Jul. 2021; Joseph Rix, N&Q 12 Sept. 1868, 257-8; E. F. Rimbault, N&Q 24 Oct. 1868, 401-2) AA