Shrubsole was a chor­ister at Can­ter­bu­ry Ca­thed­ral for se­ven years. He be­came or­ganist at Bango­r Ca­thed­ral around 1780, but his sym­pa­thies for the “dis­sent­ers” were not well re­ceived there, as ev­i­denced by these re­cords:

October 1783. Mr. Will­iam Shrub­sole, the or­gan­ist of the Church, hav­ing giv­en great of­fence to the Dean and Chap­ter, by his close con­nex­ion with one Ab­bot, late of this place, as by his fre­quent­ing con­vent­i­cles, that Mr. Dean be im­pow­ered to dis­charge the said Will­iam Shrub­sole from his place of or­gan­ist, if the said Ab­bot (who is sup­posed to have gone to re­side in Dub­lin), shall at any time here­af­ter re­turn in or­der to abide in the town of Bang­or, or the neigh­bour­hood there­of, or if the said Will­iam Shrub­sole shall be found to fre­quent any con­vent­i­cle or re­li­gious as­sem­bly, where any­thing is taught which is con­tra­ry to the Doc­trine or Dis­ci­pline of the Church of Eng­land.

December 1783. That Will­iam Shrub­sole be em­ployed to play on the or­gan of our Ca­thed­ral Church till La­dy-day next and no long­er; that in case it should not be con­ven­ient for him to con­tin­ue in that em­ploy­ment till La­dy-day next, he shall be at lib­er­ty to leave it be­fore that time, and shall be paid the full al­low­ance to La­dy-day next not­with­stand­ing.

After de­part­ing Bang­or, Shrub­sole be­came or­gan­ist at Spa­fields Cha­pel, Lon­don, in 1784, and re­mained there unt­il his death.

Ac­cord­ing to , this is a dif­fer­ent man from Will­iam Shrub­sole the hymn­ist.

Sources

Music

1. Miles Lane