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WESLEY, SAMUEL SEBASTIAN (1810-1876), English composer and organist, natural son of Samuel Wesley, the eminent composer, was born in London on the i4th of August 1810. He was one of the Children of the Chapel Royal from 1819, held various unimportant posts as organist from the age of fifteen, and in 1832 was appointed to Hereford Cathedral. His career as a composer began with his splendid anthem, The Wilderness, which was probably written for the opening of the Hereford organ in that year. In 1834 it fell to him to conduct the Festival of the Three Choirs, and in the following year he resigned Hereford for Exeter Cathedral; and during the next six years his name became gradually more and more widely known. In 1842 Dr Hook, afterwards dean of Chichester, offered him a large salary to become organist of Leeds parish church, and at Leeds much of his finest work as a composer was done. In 1849 he quitted this post for Winchester, in order to secure educational advantages for his sons. He was at Winchester until 1865, when he offered himself as a candidate for Gloucester Cathedral, the last of his many posts. He again conducted the Three Choirs Festivals of 1865, 1868, 1871 and 1874. A civil list pension of 100 a year was conferred on him in 1873; he died at Gloucester on the i9th of April 1876, and was buried at Exeter.
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