H. C. Colles

Henry Cope Colles (20 April 1879 – 4 March 1943) was an English music critic, music lexicographer, writer on music and organist. He is best known for his 32 years as chief music critic of The Times (1911–1943) and for editing the 3rd and 4th editions of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1927 and 1940 respectively).

Henry Colles (known informally as "Harry") was born in Bridgnorth, Shropshire in 1879, the son and grandson of doctors both called Abraham Colles (the senior Abraham Colles is remembered as the discoverer and eponym of Colles' fracture). His family was of Irish origin, originally from Kilkenny. They settled in Somerset, although the junior Abraham Colles practised in Bridgnorth.

Harry Colles entered the Royal College of Music at age of 16 and studied music history under Hubert Parry, the organ under Walter Alcock, and counterpoint under Walford Davies. He and Davies cemented a lifelong friendship, and Colles later wrote Davies's biography. He spent three years at the RCM and then, on Sir Walter Parratt's advice, applied for and won the organ scholarship at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating in 1902.

In 1908, he designed the organ for Emmanuel Church, West Hampstead in consultation with Walford Davies who gave the first performance. Colles replaced the inaugural organist Martin Shaw, and was himself replaced by Harold Darke.

The Dean of Worcester College, William Henry Hadow, had strongly supported Colles to use his gifts with the written word in the field of music criticism. He became assistant music critic of The Times, under J. A. Fuller Maitland, and in 1911 succeeded him as chief critic. He occupied that role for more than half his life; he was 31 when appointed, and remained in this position until his death 32 years later in 1943, at the age of 63. During that time he appointed Frank Howes, Dyneley Hussey and A. H. Fox Strangways as his assistants, Howes eventually succeeding him. His writing was marked by its "comprehensive taste, sure and fair judgment, and … unfailing tact and humanity that tempered even his severest strictures".

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