The organist and musical scholar was born at Ellington. In 1896, he was appointed organist and choirmaster at Downside Abbey, where he began to revive the music written for the Latin ritual by early English composers. He was the first to perform liturgically the three- and four-part masses by Byrd, Tallis's four-part Mass and Lamentations and motets by Parsons, Morley, White and others.
When Westminster Cathedral was built, Terry was appointed organist and director of music, a post he held with great distinction from 1901-1924, when he resigned after criticism of his bold choice of works. Terry was able to establish at Westminster Cathedral a tradition of musical treatment for the whole of the Roman liturgy in England, based on the principles laid down in the Motu proprio, so that the Use of Westminster offered an example to Roman Catholic church musicians unequalled anywhere outside Rome itself. Terry set a high standard of performance and demonstrated the great wealth of liturgical music of the finest period. He revived among much else, Byrd's Gradualia and Cantiones Sacrae and the Cantiones of Tallis and Byrd. He also did much editorial work as well as publishing modern editions of Calvin's first Psalter of 1539 and the Scottish Psalter of 1635. His Westminster Hymnal (1912) was for many years the standard hymnal for Roman Catholic use in England. Terry was knighted in 1922.