John Baptist Malchair of Oxford and his Collection of ‘National Music’ 1

The artist and musician John Baptist Malchair (1730–1812) was a much venerated figure on the eighteenth-century Oxford scene, but on the whole has remained unknown since then, except to a few specialists. He is featured in both editions of New Grove, but otherwise literature pertaining to him is patchy. ² Malchair hailed from Cologne, where his father was a watchmaker; he was baptized Johann Baptist Malscher and became a chorister at the cathedral in 1744. Moving to Nancy, and then to England in 1754, he spent some years as a violinist and drawing master in London, Hereford, and Bristol, before being appointed leader of the Oxford Music Room (later the Holywell Music Room) band in 1760. He settled in Oxford, where he spent the rest of his life, leading the band until his sight began to fail in 1792. ³