Preece Family Tree

"DOCTOR OF BLOWERS" DIES AT LLANDAFF.

AN OLD CATHEDRAL SERVANT'S QUAINT WHIMS.

ORGAN-BLOWER WHO "BROUGHT UP" SIX ORGANISTS.

The death occurred on Saturday at Llandaff North, after an illness of several months, of one whose form and figure were in past years very familiar to those who visited and worshipped in Llandaff Cathedral. Henry Preece was born in the city when it was a quaint village, with its ruined church and its clusters of thatched cottages. He was brought up in the shadow of the old cathedral, where his father had filled the office of sexton, and in the course of time the deceased became the organ-blower, a position which he held until the new organ with its electrical machinery deprived him of his vocation. He used to express grave doubts whether the new machinery would be as reliable as the hands which had worked the bellows for so many years. In his early days Henry Preece was employed by the parochial authorities to post notices on the surrounding churches, and he was fond of relating instances which had occurred during his long country walks on these occasions.

Everyone going to the cathedral knew the quaint old official, who dubbed himself "The Doctor of Blowers," and claimed that he had been the master of successive organists, Dr. Gladstone, Mr. Aylward, Mr. C. Lee Williams, Mr. Hugh Brooksbank, Mr. G. G. Beale, and Mr. C. E. Gibbons.

When the present vicar came to Llandaff in 1878, he met the organ-blower, who, with the importance befitting his position, gave him this word of encouragement: "Me and Mr. Williams, the organist, will do all we can to help you."

In the absence of Mr. M. Morgan, the verger, Preece would conduct strangers round the cathedral, and rumour has it that on these occasions he would draw largely on his imagination in describing its monuments and the changes it had undergone. At length his sight failed, and as one of his former pupils saw his old master groping his way in darkness along the aisles of the church which he loved so well he felt inspired to write the following verses :-

Though sightless, still thou hoverest around
The sacred spot, the doubly hallowed ground,
Where once in summer's heat and winter's cold
Thou to the stranger wondrous story told.

Told of the ruin of that ancient fane,
Told of the ivy creeping o'er the pane;
Told of dismantled tower and crumbling wall,
Told of the lightning flash and hideous fall,

Which battered in the roof of beauteous nave,
Making a wreck, as when tumultuous wave
Strews o'er the shore the fragements of the ship
That lately rose and fell with graceful dip.

A piteous sight, to make the angels weep
When bending from on high they saw the heap
Once fashioned with a noble, suble art,
That told how zeal and knowledge had their part.

And thou canst tell - for thou didst live the while -
Of careless looking on that saddened pile;
Till o'er men's minds a better spirit came,
Restoring beauty with transforming flame.

What wonder that thy later love doth keep
A guard on turret, tower, and pointed steep!
Thy life was lived within its restful shade,
And there life's offering was made.

O, tragic figure of a lonely man!
Thou raisest eyes that can no longer scan
Earth's fairest sight, or man's restoring skill,
Unless thy soul those sightless orbs doth fill.

What matters that thou hast not learning's store,
What matters that thy labours now are o'er!
Lean on thy staff and slowly climb the hill
And teach the stronger love doth conquer still.

Year by year, at every choir supper, the old man proposed the same toast, which he was careful to remind his hearers was the composition of the Doctor of Blowers - "May the members of the Church of England be as strong as the butt of an oak and as numerous as the birds thereon."

By his death a quaint figure disappears from the cathedral city. He passed away peacefully in his quiet retreat at Llandaff North at the age of 74 years.

The late JOHN PREECE, [sic] "Doctor of Blowers," the organ-blower who "brought up" six organists. Preece died on Sunday at the age of 74.