ABSTRACT
Women who sought work as church musicians in nineteenth-century England faced a number of issues raised by churches that refused to consider them for employment and by men intent on maintaining the current social and economic status quo. The linking of ladies with blind persons may have alluded to incapacities in women comparable to infirmities that, in the mind of an 1862 contributor to the same journal, entitled the blind to compassion and assistance. Samuel Wesley's text alludes to questionable practices involved in the selection of a church organist. Officials might feign good intentions, but the result was a biased election. An obvious case was when some churches in nineteenth-century England declared 'ladies not eligible' to apply for vacant organist posts. For the musical women who chose a career as an organist, the church offered the best opportunity to play on a regular basis, and many organists limited their playing to the church.
