Walter Jekyll

Walter Jekyll (27 November 1849, Bramley, Surrey, England – 17 February 1929, Bower Hall, Riverside, Hanover, Jamaica), was an English clergyman who renounced his religion and became a planter in Jamaica, where he collected and published songs and stories from the local African-Caribbean community.<ref name="Intro">{{cite book |author1-link=Alice Werner|title=Introduction to Jamaican Song and Story |date=1907 |publisher=Folk Lore Society |location=London}}</ref> Early life Jekyll lived in his youth with his family at 2 Grafton Street, Mayfair, London, the seventh of the seven children of Captain Edward Joseph Hill Jekyll, an officer in the Grenadier Guards, and his wife Julia Hammersley. His sister was the gardener Gertrude Jekyll. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. Jekyll was a friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, who borrowed the family name for his 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Clerical career He was ordained as a Church of England deacon in 1874, and as a priest in 1875, becoming the rector of Holy Trinity church, Heydon, Cambridgeshire until 1877. He then became a minor canon of Worcester Cathedral until 1879 when he became a chaplain at Malta. In 1880 he lost his faith and stood down from his church career. Subsequent career He moved to Milan where he learnt singing with Francesco Lamperti. He returned to England where he provided and English translation of his Art of Singing in 1884.