The former ex-patriate German priest and political activist, Joseph Mainzer, had made music the means of attempting to ameliorate the miseries of the poor in Germany, Belgium and France. His massed gratuitous singing classes became one of the sights of Paris late in the 1830s until the suspicions of the French police were aroused and he was forced to abandon them. After he took refuge in England in 1841, similarly large classes were begun in London under the title `Singing for the Million', the title also given to his English textbook.