Item Box 4 - Two volumes containing manuscript scores of 'S. Paulinus of York: an oratorio'

The son of Robert Lunn, a farmer from Cleve Prior, John Robert Lunn was born in 1831. After schooling at King Edward's, Birmingham, Lunn was admitted to St John's College, Cambridge in 1849. He graduated BA in 1853, as 4th Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos, was elected to a Foundress Fellowship in 1855, and received his BD in 1863. From 1857 to 1864 Lunn served the University as Sadleirian Lecturer in Mathematics. Lunn was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Ely in 1855, and priest the following year. He left Cambridge in 1863 to take up the Vicarage of Marton-cum-Grafton, Yorkshire, where he stayed until his death on 23 February 1899. He married, on 5 April 1864, Sophia, daughter of T.P. Fernie.

Lunn learnt music from his mother at a young age, and was organist at Edgbaston Parish Church 1846-7. He was President of the Cambridge University Musical Society and did much to make known the works of J. S. Bach. Lunn composed ecclesiastical music, including an unpublished oratorio 'S. Paulinus of York'. He was also author of the pamphlets 'Life of Caleb Parnham' and 'The sin of the age - compromise: a sermon'. A mural brass in the chancel of Marton Church bears a likeness of him.