In 2010 a choir for boys ages 14 to 19 was formed in Wales. This year the choir, dubbed Only Boys Aloud, placed third in Britain’s Got Talent television show. The choir has about 133 boys and their perfect voices blend in the great tradition of Welsh male choirs. Their performances can be found on YouTube. Their presence signals hope that the future of Welsh singing is secure and they represent the emerging generation.
Fred Anderson
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William E. Hatcher, the prominent Virginia Baptist minister of a century ago, would have been proud. He encouraged the same endeavor—choir singing—for the boys in each city where he served as a pastor—Petersburg, Va., Baltimore and Richmond.
In 1875 Hatcher became pastor of Grace Street Baptist Church (now simply known as Grace Baptist Church) in Richmond and he began to interest the boys of the city into coming to church. He described the abundance of boys as “banks and tides and storms of boys.” He began the Sunday afternoon boys’ meetings in his first year at Grace and continued until the close of his pastorate some 26 years later. Attendance varied from 50 to 150.
In the 1860s to 1880s each Richmond neighborhood had a gang of boys. They were identified by their locations: Oregon Hill, Sidney, Harvietown, Sheep Hill, Brook Road, Butcher Town, Church Hill, Union Hill, Rocketts. Several streets had their gangs, including the Fourth Street Horribles. The gangs frequently made war on each other, conducting “the fiercest battles—rock battles.” It is likely that many gang members found their way to Grace Street Church’s boys meetings.
Hatcher described the weekly gatherings: “I often said that it was the only meeting unaffected by seasons or weather. Rain and snow had little effect except upon many of the parents who were glad enough to shift their restless youngsters over to me to break the strain of the afternoon; and as for the boys themselves they had no rheumatism, no outside engagements, no sweethearts ….
“We usually held the meetings at half-past two in the afternoon, but many of the boys would beg that they might come into my study a little beforehand, and precious chats and songs we often had together.”
A century earlier than the Welsh choir, Hatcher was encouraging Richmond’s boys to sing. He once recalled: “We had a great deal of singing. How the boys did sing! Sometimes we had boys to sing solos; sometimes duets, quartets, and they did it well; and as for the choral songs, they were thrilling, heart-stirring, and the boys reveled in them. Men and women flocked to the meetings at times to get a taste of the boys’ songs. We had a business schedule, including the calling of the roll, reading the minutes, receiving new members and having little exercises such as repeating passages of Scripture, reciting standard hymns, short speeches, finely spoken by the boys.
“I took the utmost pains in having the choicest men of the country to address the boys; and later on my ‘old boys,’ as they rose to distinction, were called back and we would have fine reunions with them.
“The great bulk of these boys attended worship on Sunday morning. They occupied the front seats, and in case of an overflow they bunched themselves on the platform in front of the pulpit …. They were among my best hearers. It used to be said that the other churches decorated their pulpits with flowers, but that I made bold to decorate mine with boys.
“It was easy to get the boys to take little parts, repeating verses of Scripture or hymns, or sometimes delivering little speeches of which I had a good many prepared, and it was amazing to note the thorough self-possession which they so soon acquired.
“My boys were great money makers. They always had their collection, and hardly a boy came that did not bring a penny or more. It was estimated that during its lifetime over $10,000 passed through the treasury of their society and on one occasion the church itself, finding itself in a strait, borrowed quite a sum of money from the boys. When our new church was built the boys had an entertainment which turned them out over $600.
“How did the boys turn out? Many of them went into trades, the stores, the foundries and the shops, but they grew up among the very best of their class. Ever so many of them caught a passion for learning and went off to the colleges and universities. They became a distinct class in Richmond and indeed far and wide.”
Hatcher told of traveling across the country and frequently running into his “old boys.” “It is a princely constituency, a free-born brotherhood, my pride and my crown.”
In 1898 Hatcher founded a school for boys, Fork Union Military Academy in Fluvanna County, Va., which he termed “the pet of my evening years.” He devoted his time and energy to raising funds for the academy.
About 1910 the grand old man made a return trip to Grace Street Church in Richmond. “What charmed me most,” he wrote in his autobiography, “was to see about 300 of my boys march in as a body. In look and form they were boys no more; many of them had their own boys with them and things showed a shocking change, but in the hour after the [service], when I shook the strong hand, when I saw on many a face the tears which told of melted hearts, when I felt strong arms around me and heard words all freighted with love and kindness, I felt that my boys were still living and that out on the eternal hills somewhere we would have a reunion and know each other forever.”
Hatcher reckoned that boys were some of the best material in the world because they were destined to become men. He wanted them to be the best kind of men in whatever trade, business or profession they entered. He also recognized that he was developing the future male leaders of the churches. In many respects the boys’ meetings were the forerunner of Royal Ambassadors. Who is taking an interest in developing the boys of today into the men of tomorrow?
Fred Anderson ([email protected]) is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies.