ABSTRACT
The history which is about to be recounted will expand the traditional understanding of the Ecclesiological Movement by revealing a sphere in which the depth of its influence has been virtually unknown, that of the revival of music in Anglican worship. Within the sphere of the Church, the most well documented antecedent to ecclesiology is the Oxford Movement. The historical predisposition of High Churchmen was to be somewhat wary of hymn singing, which was a characteristic of Evangelical and Nonconformist worship; they tended instead to favour metrical psalms. The development in the musical world that most enabled the widespread revival of Anglican choral worship was the singing movement. Benjamin Webb’s attraction to the High Churchmanship for which he was known in later life seems to have been gradual, fed by a curiosity which led him to seek out all manner of religious experiences in the late 1830s.
