Thomas Helmore (7 May 1811, in Kidderminster – 6 July 1890, in Westminster) was a choirmaster, writer about singing and author and editor of hymns and carols.

He was ordained in the Church of England in the same year, and took up a curacy at St Michael on Greenhill, Lichfield, where he was also a priest-vicar in the Cathedral.

His main duty at St Mark's was to train the students to sing a daily unaccompanied choral service in the college chapel.

The choir's repertoire grew to include such as the anthems of Gibbons and Byrd and the motets of Palestrina, Vittoria and Marenzio.

[3] Helmore's growing reputation as a choirmaster led to his appointment in 1846 as master of the choristers in the Chapel Royal, St James's, where one of his pupils was Arthur Sullivan.

[2] In 1853, the British ambassador to Sweden, G. J. R. Gordon, returned to England with a copy of the sixteenth-century song book Piae Cantiones, which he presented to John Mason Neale, known for his interest in early music.