Lionel Dakers

Energetic director of the Royal School of Church Music

Lionel Frederick Dakers, organist and director of music: born Rochester, Kent 24 February 1924; Organist, Ripon Cathedral 1954-57; Organist and Master of the Choristers, Exeter Cathedral 1957-72; Special Commissioner, Royal School of Church Music 1958-72, Director 1972-90; Examiner, Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music 1958-94; President, Incorporated Association of Organists 1972-75; Secretary, Cathedral Organists' Association 1972-88; President, Royal College of Organists 1976-78; CBE 1983; Lay Canon, Salisbury Cathedral 1993-98 (Emeritus); married 1952 Elisabeth Williams (died 1997; four daughters); died Salisbury, Wiltshire 10 March 2003.

Lionel Dakers was widely known and much loved in the world of church music and will be remembered especially for his outstanding work as Director of the Royal School of Church Music.

He was born in 1924 in Rochester, where his father, a local estate agent, dearly wished his son to carry on the family firm. In his autobiography Places Where They Sing (1995), Lionel spoke frankly of parental opposition to his early ambition to be a musician – a vocation doubtless fostered by his preparatory education as a non-singing boy at Rochester Cathedral Choir School.

From there he went on to Gravesend Boys High School, which he left without qualifications at the age of 16. But he did at this time take lessons with H.A. Bennett, Organist of Rochester Cathedral. Lionel Dakers makes no secret in his memoirs that he resented the lack of a public school education and the possibility of an Oxbridge organ scholarship. But like many others, he was saved by the Second World War.

When he was called up, he was found to have flat feet. So he was drafted into the Educational Corps, in which he served from 1943 to 1947. This turn of events was fortuitous, for his first posting was to York, where he seized the chance of taking lessons with the redoubtable Sir Edward Bairstow at the minster. This enabled him to take the Diploma Examination of the Royal College of Organists, of which he became a Fellow in 1945. During his second posting to Egypt, he gained further valuable experience as Organist of Cairo Cathedral.

On demobilisation, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music, moving in 1951 to be assistant to Sir William Harris at St George's Chapel, Windsor. It was in this year he met and married Elisabeth Williams, daughter of the Rector of Slough. A fine musician herself, trained at the Royal College of Music, she was a woman of immense energy and resourcefulness. She gave to her husband the security and support he needed after a childhood when he had to cope with indifference to his music from his parents.

His period at Windsor was short as he was appointed organist at Ripon in 1954 to succeed the elderly Charles Moody, who had held the post since 1902. As in later appointments, Dakers took over at a difficult time and subsequently had to put up with his predecessor's still living nearby. Moody had recently taken the Dean and Chapter to court, claiming that their instruction to have the morning canticles sung to a congregational setting was illegal. He lost the case and thereafter resorted to petty acts of retaliation.

For Dakers, this was not the most promising of beginnings. However he had just the right qualities of friendliness and common sense to win people round. Things began to improve. But before long he was on the move again, to take up the post in 1957 of Organist of Exeter Cathedral, where the greater responsibilities of the job were welcome to a man of such energy and capacity for work – qualities which stayed with him almost to the end of his life.

Appointed an Examiner to the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in 1958, he now had the opportunity to travel abroad to undertake examining tours. He became a great traveller and loved to be off and away, whether on work or pleasure. Despite this, he kept up a full round of activities in cathedral and diocese, though doubtless some thought he was away a bit too much. A notable feature of his time in Devon was his willingness to visit country churches on behalf of the RSCM – often on a Sunday evening after a hard day in the cathedral. He was a great encourager – able to communicate at all levels.

It was this aspect of his worth that marked him out as a natural successor to Gerald Knight as Director of the Royal School of Church Music in 1972. Here, again, he arrived amidst controversy. The Council of the RSCM thought the time was ripe for change and Knight, on reaching the age of 65, was required to retire, rather against his will. It was difficult for his successor that he continued to live at the RSCM headquarters in Addington Palace.

Yet more trouble was looming. The RSCM had moved from Canterbury to Addington Palace, in Croydon, in 1953, thanks to Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher, who used his influence to secure a 50-year lease at a peppercorn rent. The former country seat of the Archbishops of Canterbury had proved an ideal home for the College of St Nicholas, founded by Sir Sydney Nicholson in 1928. This residential college, which attracted students from all over the world, was unique in that it allowed for "hands-on" training in the chapel together with structured study. By the time Dakers arrived it was becoming increasingly hard to maintain. Finance was a problem – but there was also difficulty in getting enough suitable students.

Dakers tackled this problem immediately. He decided to close the college, incurring the wrath of the former director and staff. In retrospect the right decision was made – but what should be done with an enormous empty building?

The problem was resolved with great imagination and vision. Dakers devised a series of short-term residential courses and day training events for church musicians which brought new life to Addington Palace. Soon the corridors echoed with the voices of young organists on a weekend course or the sound of choirs rehearsing on a Saturday afternoon in the Great Hall. RSCM members came in their thousands and the palace soon became very much the family home of the RSCM.

The creation of such a friendly ambience was very much the joint work of Lionel and Elisabeth Dakers. She acted as housekeeper, presiding over the restoration of the fabric, the upgrading of the food and the provision of a greater degree of comfort. A bar installed in the Common Room was often staffed by the Director and his wife, from where they dispensed drinks and a warm welcome to their guests. They entertained visitors by their frequent ragging of one another in public.

Revitalising Addington was central. But much else was achieved. The worldwide membership continued to grow, the Publications Department expanded, providing new resources for the revised liturgies, and activities at the local level, including the great cathedral festivals, continued to flourish. Particular highlights were the festivals at the Albert Hall in 1977 and 1987 at which Dakers conducted with great authority massed choirs drawn from the worldwide membership.

Outside the RSCM, Dakers found time for many other things. He was unusual in that he actually liked committees; he was a born administrator. He was a director of Hymns Ancient and Modern, President of the Royal College of Organists, a trustee of the Ouseley Trust – and so on. His colleagues always enjoyed his company. There was a twinkle in his eye and he loved nothing better than a good gossip. He usually knew what was going on before anyone else. Those with news to retail thought carefully before divulging it, for they knew that once it entered Dakers's head it would be broadcast widely. His telephone bills must have been enormous.

He retired from the RSCM in 1989. He was just the right man for a job which required musical skills but also to a considerable degree administrative flair and pastoral concern. By his own admission, towards the end of his reign he avoided controversial matters on the horizon. At heart he was a traditionalist and found the changing fashions amongst Evangelicals who favoured lighter forms of music difficult to manage. Abroad, things were changing too. The Australian branches were wanting great autonomy and no longer wished to be ruled as a far outpost of Empire by a director in Addington Palace.

In retirement, living in Salisbury, Lionel Dakers remained active, writing and editing, notably The New Church Anthem Handbook (1992). He was a Lay Canon of the cathedral and Chairman of the Salisbury Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches. The death of his wife in 1997 was a very great blow. He was determined to continue to live life to the full. In this he was greatly helped by his Christian faith. At the end of his life he coped cheerfully with ill-health and was an inspiration to those who knew him; his four devoted daughters survive him.

Harry Bramma