Eldest child of Hen­ry and Har­ri­et Cow­ard, Hen­ry served an ap­pren­tice­ship at Shef­field as a pen blade mak­er. Though un­ed­u­cat­ed, he be­came a teach­er at Grease­bo­rough school; he later earned his Bachelor of Mu­sic at Ox­ford in 1889, and Doc­tor of Mu­sic in 1894. He con­duct­ed the Hud­ders­field chor­al so­ci­e­ty for 30 years, and is cred­it­ed with re­viv­ing the ton­ic-sol-fa meth­od which he used with sing­ers from the mills an fac­to­ries who could not read mu­sic. He con­duct­ed ma­ny Whit Sun­day sings in Shef­field, in­clud­ing a per­for­mance be­fore Queen Vic­tor­ia. He be­came a Free­man of the Ci­ty of Shef­field in 1920, and was knight­ed by King George V in 1927 for his serv­ic­es to mu­sic. He al­so tra­veled the world, and wrote. His works in­clude:

• Choral Tech­nique and In­ter­pre­ta­tion (Lon­don: 1914)
• Reminiscences (Lon­don: 1919)

Sources

Music

1. Nature’s Voice
2. Ox­ford