MONOVIAN CELEBRITIES. VIII.
JOHN FRANCIS HOLCOMBE READ.

There hangs upon the wall of the Headmaster's study an interesting and amusing caricature: it depicts a tall, patriarchal figure, with a long white beard, and is labelled "Father Time." This drawing is taken from a series of caricatures called "Men of our Time," which appeared in Vanity Fair. Upon looking at the back of the picture we find that the subject of the drawing is Mr. John Read, for forty years a Walthamstow townsman, a musical composer by no means insignificant, to whom we Monovians owe the music of the School Song. For that alone, surely, he deserves to be included within the ranks of Monovian Celebrities.
Mr. Read used to live at "The Chestnuts," an interesting Georgian mansion in Hoe Street, which now houses the Walthamstow Girls' Trade School. He was born in Jamaica in 1821, but at the tender age of four months had to brave the perils of the Atlantic, since he was sent to live with his grand parents at Woolwich. He began his career as a clerk in the War Office. This he soon abandoned for the more exciting business of stockbroker. So popular was he with his fellow stockbrokers that he became Chairman of the Stock Exchange, and incidentally a Director of the Great Eastern Railway and of six other companies. About 1860 he came to Walthamstow, and for forty years he was one of its most notable townsmen, being a prominent leader in all matters of art and culture, and filling many important public offices.
It was the cause, of Music, however, which claimed Mr. Read's fullest attention. His life as a musician started at the age of twelve, when he began to learn violin playing from a member of the Royal Artillery Band. Later he held high office at the Royal Academy of Music, and for twenty-five years was President and Conductor of the Walthamstow Musical Society. It was Mr. Read's most cherished ideal to make Walthamstow a great musical centre, to do for our town what the Halle Orchestra has done for Manchester. This ambition and the scope of his compositions made it necessary that he should build a large hall where his numerous concerts could be held. Hence the Victoria Hall was built. A Musical Festival in 1887 marked the opening of the hall that Mr. Read hoped would become the cradle of a great musical revival in Walthamstow. He always insisted on engaging the best soloists and orchestras, and for this reason spent lavishly on his concerts.
The School Song was composed in 1889, and was sung for the first time on the occasion of the First Prize Day after the opening of the High Street building, the foundation stone of which Mr. Read had laid earlier in the year. His interest in the educational work of Walthamstow had made him a prime mover in the revival of the almost defunct remains of the original Monoux Foundation.
Mr. Read has been described as "a cultured, kindly, and accomplished man." The ideal which prompted the building of the Victoria Hall seems to have died with him. For, after the founder's death, it became, or shall we say degenerated into, the more popular music hall. And, still more recently, by another step on the downward path, the music hall has become a cinema.
Although during his lifetime he had amassed large fortunes, Mr. Read died a comparatively poor man. To some his money may seem to have been ill-spent. The endowment of a scholarship fund, or the gift of a public park to the town might, perhaps, have been more worthy objects for his generosity than the inculcation into his fellow citizens of a taste for " highbrow" music. Be that as it may, Mr. Read deserves to be remembered as a "Monovian Celebrity", a celebrity whose fame travelled beyond the confines of Walthamstow.
J. H. PAYLING. (VI. Lit.).