Frances Lynch and a picture of the little-known Eliza Flower

A COMPOSER and humanist campaigner whose music was “hidden in history” because she was a woman is being celebrated in a new performance.

You might not have heard of Eliza Flower, who lived in Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia, and died in 1846. But you may know her sister Sarah, who penned the hymn Nearer My God To Thee, which is thought to have been sung by passengers while the Titanic sank.

“People vaguely know who Sarah is, but Eliza’s music just got lost,” said artistic director at the Electric Voice Theatre Frances Lynch.

“But she had music published by Novello [a big publishing house]. She wasn’t inconsequential. People like [poet] Robert Browning thought she was a genius.

“Eliza was the Bach of the Unitarian Chapel. She was writing hymns every week. You’d struggle to find any woman composer who is known today before the 20th century because the only people writing about these people were men so [women] were written out of history.”

Originally from Essex, Ms Flower’s music ranged from solo songs and piano pieces through to protest songs that were sung on the streets for hundreds of years, “which was quite weird for a classical composer”, Ms Lynch said.

Eliza Flower

Charting her history, Ms Lynch, who lives in Finsbury Park, found that Conway Hall had an archive on her in its library.

She said: “I walked into the library and the first thing that greeted me was her and her sister’s portraits hanging above the fireplace.

“These guys had been movers and shakers in the movement at that time that ended up as humanism, which started out in Finsbury at the Unitarian Chapel, South Place.

“It was a very influential place. All the literary philosophical people hung out there. Their huge influence ended up with Conway Hall being humanist.”

Eliza organised a series of Sunday night concerts, which still runs at Conway Hall.

Paying homage to Ms Flower’s talent with an accessible evening of music which has not been performed for 100 years, Flowers of the Seasons – Politics, Power & Poverty will premiere on October 27 in Conway Hall’s library.