Background
He was baptised on 18 March 1793 at Street Leonard’s, Shoreditch, the son of Thomas Anthony Crathern and his wife Martha.
He was baptised on 18 March 1793 at Street Leonard’s, Shoreditch, the son of Thomas Anthony Crathern and his wife Martha.
His best known secular composition was the song My Boat is On the Shore, a setting of a poem by Lord Byron for piano and voice. The words of My Boat is On the Shore are from the poem entitled “To Thomas More”, written by Byron in 1817. This was one of the earliest musical settings of Byron"s work, and is estimated in the British Library catalogue to have been published in about 1820 (although there is no date on the publication itself).
Crathern"s principal religious compositions, including chants and anthems, were collected in his volume of Sacred Music, which was certainly published in 1820.
In 1820, Crathern was 27 years old, and he is already described (as he is on the undated song My Boat is On the Shore) as “Organist of Street Mary's Chapel, Hammersmith”. The old church, on the corner of what is now Hammersmith Road and Edith Road, London W14, was destroyed by bombs on 16 July 1944.
A new church on the same site was consecrated in 1961 and it is now known as Street Mary, West Kensington.