What did the elder Purcell do before he attained to such a position? We know absolutely nothing as regards his origin, his training, or his career up to this. I have made diligent search in the archives of Westminster to see if there were anything to be learned there, and have gleaned a few small facts. The name of Roger Pursell occurs in a bill for bringing timber to the College--in August 1628. The items of the bill include Carriage by land 1s. 6d., for watching 6d., for helping to land ye timber 6d. This would seem to apply to a load of timber brought from a distance for the use of the carpenters of the College. Roger Pursell {120} may have come up with the timber or he may have been one of the carpenters. He was paid 3s. for two days' work. The name appears again in 1659 when we find in a page of accounts "Expended by George Blackborn and Joseph Hobbes for the travelling charges about the Colledge affaires at Offord, in the County of Huntingdon" the following note: "In the Bonds taken from Mr Throgmorton and _Roger Pursell_ there is included £4 towards travelling charges." Then Roger Pursell is spoken of as "the 'Bayliffe' of Mr Giles." It is rather curious that the name of Roger Pursell should occur at such a wide interval, 1628 and again in 1659. One wonders if Roger's connection with the Abbey and its property was the beginning of the musical members of the family coming to Westminster. There was a Shropshire Purcell family of some standing, and in the _Herald's Visitation of Shropshire_ in 1623 it was given as of Onslow, and Shrewsbury; and there were many distinguished Purcells in Ireland. We know and hear nothing more of the elder Purcell after the production of the _Siege of Rhodes_ in 1656 until his name appears in a book in the Library at Westminster. This book records the admission of one or two Petty Canons {121} in 1660, and the payment by them of 5s. for the entry. Mr Henry Purcell's name is also entered with the note "instead of 5s. _this book_." Here, then, we have the great musician's father installed in the Abbey as Master of the Choristers (not organist also) and Copyist. He was also a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal and a Singing Man of Westminster. Later on we find him a member of the Royal Band (1663). All these important appointments testify to his leading musical position. We have a glimpse of him in Pepys' _Diary_, under date February 21st, 1660. "After dinner I back to Westminster Hall. Here I met with Mr. Lock and Pursell, Master of Music, and with them to the Coffee House into a room next the Water by ourselves. Here we had variety of brave Italian and Spanish songs and a Canon for eight voices which Mr. Locke had lately made on these words '_Domine Salvum fac Regem_.'"