Background
He was born at Gloucester on the 13th of December 1770.
He was born at Gloucester on the 13th of December 1770.
University of Oxford. University of Cambridge.
In 1789 he was appointed organist of the parish church at Ludlow. Four years later he took the degree of Music. Bac. at Cambridge, and in 1795 he was chosen organist of Armagh cathedral, whence he removed in the same year to Dublin, with the appointments of organist and master of the children at Street Patrick"s cathedral and Christchurch.
Driven from Ireland by the rebellion of 1798, he accepted the post of organist at Trinity and Street John"s Colleges, Cambridge, and about the same time assumed the surname of Whitfield, in addition to that of Clarke, by which he had been previously known.
He took the degree of Music. Doctor at Cambridge in 1799, and in 1810 proceeded to the same grade at Oxford.
In 1820 he was elected organist and master of the choristers at Hereford Cathedral. And on the death of Doctor Haig he was appointed Professor of Music at Cambridge.
Three years afterwards he resigned these appointments in consequence of an attack of paralysis.
He died at Hereford, on 22 February 1836. Whitfield"s compositions were very numerous. Among the best of them are four volumes of anthems, published in 1805.
But the great work of his life was the publication, in a popular and eminently useful form, of the oratorios of Handel, which he was the first to present to the public with a complete pianoforte accompaniment.