Rainbow , Bernarr , 1914-1998 , teacher and musicologist

Bernarr Rainbow (1914-1998) trained at Trinity College of Music and was appointed Organist and Choirmaster of High Wycombe Parish Church and Senior Music Master at the Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe in 1944. In 1952 he became Director of Music at the teacher training College of S. Mark and S. John in Chelsea, transferring to Gypsy Hill College of Education in 1972 and then becoming Head of Music at Kingston Polytechnic. He retired in 1978. Rainbow researched, wrote and published extensively on music education and historical musicology, becoming a distinguished scholar of the history of music education and gaining three postgraduate degrees from the University of Leicester. He wrote a biography of John Curwen (1816-1880), the inventor of the tonic sol-fa method of singing, and founded the Curwen Institute to promote his work. He was President of the Campaign for the Defence of the Traditional Cathedral Choir which resisted the introduction of women and in 1996 he established the Bernarr Rainbow Award for School Music Teachers.