Abstract
Ernest James William Barrington was born on 17 February 1909 in Putney, the only son of William Benedict and Harriet Barrington. Little is known of his father and mother except that his father was a church warden and clerk at a local brewery, Messers Mann Crossman & Company. Ernest Barrington attended Christ’s Hospital School at Horsham where his interests and ability in music soon became evident. He studied with a Mrs Wright and is remembered by a contemporary school fellow, Sir William Glock, the noted musicologist and one-time Music Controller of the BBC, as a gifted pianist with an enviable fluency. This ability was demonstrated by the fact that he became an ARCO in 1926 at the age of seventeen and an LRAM the year later. In this year, 1927, he went up to Oriel College, Oxford, on an organ scholarship. Music and zoology began to vie for his interest. He took four years over his degree, gaining a first class honours B.A. in zoology in 1931. He obtained a grant from the Christopher Welch Trust during his four years at Oxford which enabled him not only to read zoology but also music. He completed the paper work for his Mus.B. But did not complete the degree. While at Oxford Ernest Barrington came under the influence of two great zoologists, T.S. Goodrich the Linacre Professor of Zoology and G.R. de Beer, fellow of Merton College and lecturer in comparative and experimental embryology. Gavin de Beer was Barrington’s tutor and was also knowledgeable about music and enjoyed playing the piano. For one pupil, at least, tutorial periods occasionally ended in a session of ebullient duet playing. As a student opera was not neglected and together with his undergraduate, and lifelong, friend Tom Hughes, Barrington went often to London, particularly to Wagner operas.