Elizabeth Stirling

Elizabeth Stirling - spousal name Elizabeth Bridge - (26 February 1819 – 25 March 1895) was an English organist and composer. Biography Elizabeth Stirling was born in Greenwich, London, into an affluent family. She attended the Royal Academy of Music as a private student (women could not enroll.) There she studied piano and organ at with Edward Holmes and W. B. Wilson, and harmony with James Alexander Hamilton and Sir George Macfarren. At the start of the century, young women were encouraged to play the piano as a social grace. By 1820, with London’s rapid growth, most churches had organs, but skilled pianists were needed. The church became a place where women could earn a small income and still be respected working outside the home. Of the hundreds of female organists in England, Elizabeth Stirling’s name appeared frequently, but her activities were not unique. Ann Mounsey Bartholomew, Elizabeth Mounsey, Oliveria Prescott, Kate Loder, Kate Westrop, Elizabeth Chamberlayne, Eliza Wesley, Ann Stainer and many others were mentioned by name. They wrote organ voluntaries, interludes, choral anthems, and occasionally large works such as cantatas. “England’s nineteenth-century female orga