Tag Archive: 0George Ratcliffe Woodward

Continuing on in our series of Christmas carols, it’s ‘Ding dong! merrily on high’, one of our personal favourites! Its first appearance (words only) was in George Ratcliffe Woodward‘s Carols for Yule-tide (privately printed, Highgate Village, 1922): Traditionally, the first edition of ‘Ding dong! merrily on high’ (and ‘Past three a clock’) have been ascribed […]

The Reverend George Ratcliffe Woodward (1848–1934) is remembered today (if remembered at all) as the author of the carols ‘Ding dong! merrily on high’ and ‘Past three a clock’.  His major contributions to English church music, however, are now all but overlooked: the compilations Songs of Syon (1904), The Cowley Carol Book (1901) and, later, […]