Harry Rowe Shelley

Who was Harry Rowe Shelley?

Harry Rowe Shelley was an American composer, organist, and professor of music. He was born in New Haven, Conn. Shelley studied with Gustave J. Stoeckel at Yale College, Dudley Buck, Max Vogrich, and Antonín Dvořák in New York, and subsequently completed his musical education in London and Paris. According to his New York Times obituary, Shelley "penned church music that won him wide popularity. For sixty years a host of English-speaking peoples throughout the world sang his hymns."

Shelley attended Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, Connecticut and at fourteen played the organ at Center Church on the Green in New Haven. Although he entered Yale, he did not complete his freshman year. Shelley was organist at the Church of the Pilgrims during the ministry of Henry Ward Beecher and played at his funeral. Shelley died at age 89 in Short Beach, Connecticut.

Positions held

1878–1881 — Organist, Church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn

1881–1887 — Organist, Plymouth Church

1887–1899 — Organist, Church of the Pilgrims

1899–1914 — Organist, Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, New York, which later became Park Avenue Baptist and eventually Riverside Church