I am currently checking and updating the Archive of The Musical Box
Society of Great Britain, and have come across an item about the tune
'Onward Christian Soldiers' which may be of interest in relation to
sacred music on musical boxes and the identification of tunes.

In a recent post in 191101 MMD, Bill Wineburgh says,

> As an example, I have an Ami Rivenc Hymn box with a tune sheet that
> identifies tune 1 as "Onward Christian Soldiers."  However, on playing
> this tune it was obvious that it was not the right melody.  With some
> sleuthing, I identified the tune as "Jesus, King of Glory" by Haydn
> (1774), to which words were written by W. Hope Davidson in 1887, about
> the time when the musical box was made.

In 1999, MBSGB member John Turner (now deceased) carried out an
exercise to record a number of different mechanical instruments playing
'Onward Christian Soldiers', along with researching the origins of the
hymn.  His interest stemmed from the fact he lived very close to where
the author of the words, the Rev. Sabine Baring Gould, had founded a
Mission Church.

According to Mr. Turner, Baring Gould chose an existing tune, which
is labelled 'St Alban' in the Hymnal Companion, and (significantly)
'Haydn', no. 622 in Church Hymns.  Gould wrote the words in 1865, more
than 20 years before W. Hope Davidson wrote words to 'Jesus, King of
Glory', which may or may not be the same tune in question here.

The tune by which 'Onward Christian Soldiers' is commonly known these
days was composed by Arthur Sullivan, but Turner discovered the words
had also been set to four other compositions.

I am not sure this helps in the debate on the 'unidentified tune' which
was the original topic of this thread, but perhaps it shows how our
familiarity with a particular piece of music can dismiss more obscure
alternatives from a time past when they too would have been familiar.

Alison Biden - Archivist, MBSGB