This is the first in a series of posts giving snapshots from the history of Oxford Harmonic Choir in celebration of its centenary.
An outdoor rendition of Edward German’s light opera Merrie England on 28 July 1921 was the first reviewed concert in the long series, extending to the present, given by the Oxford Harmonic Choir, and we date our foundation from this event. At that time, the choir was called the Iffley Glee Club and was associated with the Iffley Memorial Institute, which had been set up in 1917 as a tribute to the war dead and to surviving soldiers. One of the Institute’s founders was Sir George Forrest, a retired Indian civil servant, and it was in the grounds of the house he and his wife rented, Iffley Turn House (a Regency villa, now called Grove House, 44 Iffley Turn) that the performance of Merrie England took place.
