Solomon Eccles

Solomon Eccles (c. 1617 – Spitalfields, London, 2 January 1682) belongs to the history of English music in the seventeenth century, although his significance lies less in his compositions than in the radical turn his life took.

He came from a family of musicians: both his grandfather and his father followed the profession. In his youth he earned his living teaching the virginal and viols, with an income estimated at around £200 a year. Around 1660, after a period of religious uncertainty, he became a Quaker. His zeal often overcame his prudence: convinced that making music was sinful, he publicly burnt all his instruments on Tower Hill. Accounts of his later trade conflict: some claim he worked as a cobbler, others as a tailor, while in his will he described himself as a chandler.

In 1667 he published the pamphlet A Musick-lector, in which he condemned music. His striking conduct, such as walking through the streets half-naked with a lit brazier on his head, made him notorious. His fellow Quakers valued his sincerity and his talent as a preacher, although at times he proved a difficult figure: on two occasions his monthly meeting refused him permission to publish religious writings. In 1671 he accompanied George Fox on a journey to the West Indies. It seems he did not return with Fox's group in May 1673, but he was back in England by October of that year, when he entered into his second marriage.