Introduction

Biography

Wooldridge en­rolled at the Roy­al Aca­de­my in 1865, be­com­ing in­ter­est­ed in ear­ly mu­sic at about the same time.

He was stu­dio as­sist­ant to Sir Ed­ward Burne-Jones and lat­er worked with Hen­ry Ho­li­day, chief de­sign­er for James Pow­ell and Sons, stained glass mak­ers.

Wooldridge was re­tained by Pow­ell’s and de­signed stained glass and tile paint­ings for more than 20 years. His church com­mis­sions in­clude­d a re­re­dos for St. Mar­tin’s Church in Brigh­ton, and the paint­ing of fres­coes in St John-at-Hamp­stead.

His grow­ing au­thor­i­ty on ear­ly mu­sic led to his 1895 ap­point­ment, suc­ceed­ing John Rus­kin, as Slade pro­fes­sor of Fine Arts at Ox­ford, a po­si­tion he held un­til 1904.

Works

His main con­tri­bu­tions to mu­sic li­te­ra­ture are a new edi­tion of Will­iam Chap­pell’s Po­pu­lar Mu­sic of the ol­den Time, which ap­peared un­der the ti­tle Old Eng­lish Po­pu­lar Mu­sic (1893) and The Pol­y­phon­ic Per­i­od, parts I and II (vol­umes I & II of the Ox­ford His­to­ry of Mu­sic, 1901–05).

Wooldridge al­so ed­it­ed the Yat­ten­don Hym­nal (1895–99) with his life­long friend, Po­et Laur­e­ate Ro­bert Bridg­es, with whom he lived at one point at 50 Mad­dox Street in Lon­don.