Sarah Ann Glover 1786-1867.
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Sarah Glover was born in 1786, in The Close. In 1811, her father became Curate of St Lawrence, where she and her sister led the unaccompanied singing. In trying to teach a young Sunday School teacher the tunes, so that he could teach the children, she hit upon her system of notation, in which DOH is always the first note of the scale, RAY the second, and so forth. This was called 'the Norwich Sol-fa'.
She opened a school for poor girls in Black Boy Yard in Colegate, where she used the system with very marked success. Her Scheme for Rendering Psalmody Congregational went through four editions. It came to the notice of John Curwen, who made certain alterations to it, and his Tonic Sol-fa gained wide popularity - not least in The Sound of Music!
Sarah moved away from Norwich in later life - first to Cromer, then Reading, then Hereford. She died of a stroke in 1867, while staying with friends in Great Malvern, where she is buried.
The Monument
The brass plate in St Lawrence was erected in 1891, to mark the jubilee year of the Tonic Sol-fa Association, and was paid for by the London branch. It states (wrongly) that her father was Rector of St Lawrence. The notation over the last two lines is the tune 'Rockingham' in Norwich Sol-fa.
Monumental Symbolisn
.Nothing of note
