An Art-filled adventure day, or 'the best Pies in Australia'!

 

Wednesday.  Market day. And Robert and Louis are off on a jaunt to the Blue Mountains. Which means it shanks's pony for me ... but today was my lucky day :-). 

As I set out on my dawntime plod, a car stopped and a glamorous young lady, who was heading the same way, said 'hop in'!  I didn't need asking twice! Because I knew what awaited me at the market: $144-worth of glorious Dorper Lamb fillets, ordered from WarrenWiggins at the Boorabee Dorper Sheep Stud. Lamb mightn't weigh quite as much an bananas, but I wasn't looking forward to trudging that parcel up the hill! 

Well, I pulled in my horns, didn't buy (this week) any more orchids, only five punnets of blackberries and raspberries and a huge bunch of basil, and then ... the wonderful Bonnie drove me back up the hill!  

So I had two hours in which to do the day's paperwork, before ... yes, the next part of the day's adventure. Dear friend James was taking me to Ulmarra for a snack. Now, Ulmarra is my favourite village hereabouts. Especially because it has a big second-hand bookshop ... and nice riverside pub ... 

https://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2024/08/out-and-about-in-new-south-wales-or.html

but now it also has a café which I was to 'discover'!

But first, we had culture. James is VP of the Friends of the Grafton Regional Art Gallery. I had never visited. Alas, these days I cannot walk around a big art gallery. Nor stand, looking ...  But this Gallery is of a sensible size, beautifully laid-out, and housing, at the moment, two delightful exhibitions of which Maggie McDade, head honcho, gave us a tour.

The first was a collection of works by the senior art pupils of the area. Amazing work. Sure, some of the paintings showed the 'influence' of childish trends, but some ...!

I had no difficulty in sorting out my gold and silver-medallists.  GOLD for Miss Olivia MacDonald with her wonderful rural pictures

These were the first items I saw, when I walked in, and my immediate reaction was, 'are these for sale?'  Of course, they ar'n't. Not yet, anyway. I predict Miss MacDonald will make a career.

The other exhibit which grabbed me was a group of exquisitely imaginative small pieces by Thomas (dammir, I've forgotten!) 

When I bought my apartments, here, there was a piscatorial print on the wall. Not one-tenth as good as these!

I had to sit down, so I went and sat with the cows, till Maggie was ready to take us to the second exhibition.  No amateurs here. Michele Beevors is an artist whose 'sculptures' are widely known. Models of animal skeletons, the bones covered in knitted-wool. You can read all about her and them on the www. Remarkable stuff!

From tiny frogs to a life-sized giraffe, a horse ..

and I forget what this was!

I also forgot it was raining outside!  But we bundled into James's car, and headed for Ulmarra.

A small disappoinment. The bonzer bookshop is still there. More bonzer than ever. But I and my walking-stick cannot, any longer, manage the narrow aisles, not having to bend down to boxes on the floor. I investigated a box of tattered sheet-music -- some sweet if well-loved items from my period -- but I couldn't make it to the bottom. I had to give up.

Out into the rain. Now, for the café. The Ulmarra Food Co. Seen its ads on face-book. Goodness, what an array of home-made pies. Big and bulgy ... every combination of meat and veg you could think of! I, wilfully off-centre, chose 'cheese and cauliflower'. 

Well, I am here to tell you that was the best pie I've eaten in memory. Light, bright, tasty ... 10/10 for the  pasty, 11/10 for the filling!  Before we left, I bought some 'takeaway' frozen pies. I have had my Winter Palace for nine years, and I have never yet used the oven. Here goes ....

Ulmarra, if I can't manage your bookshop any more, I sure as hell can manage your Food Co!  And I will!  Preferably on a non-rainy day, so I can sit in the pretty courtyard and stuff myself with 'the best pies in Australia'.

But the day wasn't over. When James delivered me back to The Cove, there was the contract for my new book ...

And now it's Thursday. The rain is gone, the sun is out, the refrigerator is full to bursting ...  and .. I guess I had better get down to writing that book!

PS. Friday. I have just devoured my take-away Reuben pie.  Sen-sa-tion-al!!!!!

Angourie: a little adventure

 

When you live, so to speak, somewhere, you don't necessarily go out to visit the 'sights' in your 'home' vicinity. I remember, I had lived in London for many years before I visited the Tower of London and its crown jewels, and then, solely, because a visiting friend wanted to see them.

Well, on a lesser scale, that's been the case for me, here in Yamba. The villages of Wooleweyah and Angourie (where do they get these names?) are not far away. I've been driven through them, appreciatively, over the last decade, on a number of occasions, but I've never done much more than pass through.

Angourie was my most frequent visit, because it used to be the home of a rather nice, if expensive, named Barbaresco. 

The main attraction at Angourie in recent years has been, for me, Spooky Beach and its adorable avian inhabitants

But they are not supposed the be the 'main attraction'.  The signs all arrow you towards  'the Blue and Green Pools'. 

I had never ventured. But, today, Robert and Louis thought we should go 'for coffee' ... lovely! ... and ....

Somebody entrepreneurial must have built the Angourie 'commercial centre'. Commercial? In my time its 4-5 'shops' have simply been occupied, apart from during its heyday with Barbaresco, by nowt but the eternal 'coffee bars'.  And Barbaresco is now gone. So, does Angourie have that many coffee-drinkers ...?

There are just two, at the moment. We chose the one now named 'Bay St Local', in spite of its name. It is the old grocery shop cum newsagent cum, obligatorily, coffee shop. But coffee clearly has a higher profit margin than groceries and newspapers, and reigns supreme. 

They delivered the goods capably. The coffee was strong, the $14 cheese-and-tomato toasted sandwich fine ... and the company was glamorous ..

Will I go back? Yes, if passing ...

And, then, to the crux of the outing. We were going to visit the Pools. On foot? OK, I've brought my stick .... DEVASTATION!  It's a crumbly descending path ... part has a handrail, but only part. Can I DO this? Robert seemed to have more confidence in my abilities than I did!

Well, I did. I even managed the few metres where the path had been swept away, and I had to cling to the overhanging foliage to stay upright. 

But it was worth it. The 'Pools' are man-made. Made where the stone was quarried for the local breakwater. They ar'n't particularly green and blue when the sun isn't out, and they are mirroring the sky, but they are still pretty. I'm glad I made the effort.

Yes, I'm glad I dared it. Because I sha'n't make it again. I shall just have these photos to remind me of a sweet little 'adventure'.

A bonzer Australian Road Trip!

 

A fortnight, I have been at my beloved Winter Palace, slowly getting settled in, and my latest opus, the revised edition of Andrew Lamb's A Life on the Ocean Wave, the story of Henry Russell, having winged its way from Yamba to New York, I've had a few days being 'busy doing nothing'.

Actually, there has been little choice. The climate here is what may be termed 'sub tropical'. Warm, even muggy, but occasionally decidedly damp. And occasionally violently wet. And just occasionally blindingly violently wet. So I, with my wobblyman walk and unsteady stance cannot venture outdoors, on wet footpaths, grass, and over the metre-wide flooding gutters ...

But yesterday, that changed. My dear friends Robert and Louis took me on an adventure.

'I'm going to Lismore ...', said Robert, 'come along'. Well, I'd never been to Lismore. ('Why would you?' says one who will remained unnamed). All I knew of it was that it had got drowned a few years back. Well, why not? Get out of the house for a few hours, in the comfy safety of Robert's Peugeot ...

So, at 8.45 (when Louis had finished his breakfast!) we set off. The first part of the trip was familiar. We have voyaged through Tabbimobile on other occasions. But it is pleasant, green scenery. And then it rained. A grade one power rainstorm. How the cars (not us!) managed to continue their 110kph cavalcade, I know not! Fortunately, the rafales of rain are inclined to be of short duration, so, my first bit of 'adventure' was not spoiled.

We pulled into something named 'Tucki Tucki'. The 'Bora Ring'. Perched on a hill above the plains below. A cemetery!  Well, I am fond of cemeteries: the older the better. This one isn't very old. The area was apparently settled by the colonists as late as 1880. The gravestones seemed to begin at the start of the 20th century ..

However, the star exhibit was intended to be the 'Bora Ring': a pre-colonist aboriginal stomping ground. There was, alas, nothing to see, except a weathered plaque. The 'Ring' itself is merely a fenced-off mass of weeds

Gingerly over the soggy, slippery grass .. back on to the road .. and more nice scenery, until we arrived in Lismore. Well, I've been now. It's an Australian country town which has seen -- from a picturesque point of view -- better days. It has clearly been inundated (as Christchurch has been quaked) horribly. There was a nice view up a hill (ergo: less inundated!) from the waiting room at Robert's specialist, so I sat there until ..

A surprise!  This was more than a trip to Lismore! Louis, too, had an appointment. In Byron Bay! Well, I hadn't been to Byron Bay for twenty plus years. Jamie Thane drove Ian and I through there when we were thinking of taking a place in Australia ... I remember we hurried on to Bangalow ..

But we were going by the 'picturesque' route. And it was! Bexhill, home of my favourite Boorabee Dorper Lamb Stud, Clunes, Eureka ... this is the Australia I love! Then Federal ... where the hungry young folk stopped for a bite ...

So what was the menu? Sushi. I have only eaten sushi once. A quarter of a century ago, when it became à la mode in London, and a posh place opened in upper St Martin's Lane. I hadn't seen any reason to repeat the experience, since. But ... in the Australian country side? It seemed grotesque enough to be a necessity!  Did I like it? The filling was delicious, but I don't care for the nori seaweed wrap. Reminded me of fish-skin. Ohimé, I, who have always been such an adventurous eater. Alas, with my withered hand, I can no longer wield chopsticks, either ..

On, down the hill, with some grand scenery and views, and finally ..

Byron Bay. Well. I gather it's a popular resort town. While Louis was seeing his optometrist, Robert drove me round town a bit. The chief 'attraction' is apparently the lighthouse. Its speciality is that it is the easternmost point of Australia. 

It also costs $10 to park, and is attached to some sort of eatery. We didn't stop. We descended briskly and went to have a look at the fabled beach. 

Well, Main Beach is fair enough. But it wouldn't rate in the top hundred of Beaches I Have Visited. Once again, we didn't park. But Robert stopped the car long enough for me to take a snap or two.

The lighthouse looks nicer from a distance. But there was a distraction in the foreground!

While Louis was choosing spectacle frames, I sat comfortably in the car (the sun had come out) and watched the world go by ... Where were the beautiful people? Skinny twenty or thirty-something girls with lank hair and little clothing, displaying full dorsal buttocks and the occasional 'other eye'. The men ... well, I was reminded of my visit to 'glamorous' Sitges. No smiles. No one seemingly having a good time. I was rather thankful when we rolled out of town ... and headed for home.

And another surprise. 

The boys need their regular coffees. So we made a little side trip to a spot named Lennox Head. Lennox Head is everything Byron Bay isn't. A delightful freshwater lake, with smiling mothers and children picnicking ...

A splendid beachfront, a 'head' without a lighthouse ..

And the coffee? Well, we lucked in!  The first place we stopped at was closing -- in mid-afternoon -- the second was not up to our standards, and the third ... was QUATTRO.

So, instead of coffee, we had a truly delicious pizza marinara, washed down by a couple of excellent margaritas ..

from the fair hands of Tara ...

All I can say is, I shall definitely -- we all will! -- be returning to Lennox Head.

The discovery of the day!

And, so, we headed into the last hour and a bit of our 300-kilometre road trip. No side roads, now, straight down the motorway towards the double rainbow ..

A quiet gin on the dusk-shrouded terrace at The Cove ... and the end of a huge day!

Thanks, my friends ...

 

Emma Beasley

When I began getting involved with my Victorian Vocalists, I determined that I would (a) not write about the 'famous' names, who had already had large studies or autobiographies devoted to them. I would, rather, investigate those performers who had not been previously 'done'. Duly, when my book Victorian Vocalists was published, containing a selection from the 1000 singers to whom I had devoted an article, it contained everything from negelected stars to risible failures, and everything in between. 

Of course, I have an awful lot of articles left over, and it seems silly to waste them .. but .. time!  Well, as from this week I am 'between books', so I'll launch a few, ebfroe I get drowned in proofs ...

Here goes!

BEASLEY, Emma Louisa (b Smethwick, North Harborne, Staffs x 25 June 1854; d 76 Ashworth Mansions, Elgin Avenue 29 March 1926)

 

Emma Beasley had a largely local career, in the 1870s, before retiring to private life.

 

Emma was born in Smethwick, the daughter of Benjamin Beasley (d George Hotel, Huntingdon 11 February 1907), variously an ironmaster’s clerk and a gun-maker, and his wife Sarah Julia née Brierley (d Brampton Park 21 October 1900). She was enrolled, as a teenager, at the Royal Academy of Music, where, under the teaching of Randegger, she held the Westmoreland Scholarship 1872-4, and was awarded a silver medal. Her first public appearances seem to have been during her Academy days – I spot her playing dates with fellow student Henry Pope at Euston (Stabat Mater) and Tunbridge Wells (The Rival Beauties), at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge, with another student, Gertrude Bradwyn, round Wales (Denbigh, Ruthin, Rhyl), and in concert with Vernon Rigby in Birmingham and Walsall ( 'From Mighty Kings', Sullivan's 'Guenevere', Braga Serenade) and fellow Randegger-pupil, Orlando Christian, in Buckinghamshire. The concerts proliferated, in Sheffield with Sims Reeves (‘From Mighty Kings’, ’Bid me discourse’, ‘When I Remember’), at Albury ('A Day Dream'), in Buxton ('The Legend of the Rose', 'The Old Cottage Clock'), Worcester ('Softly Sighs'), Coventry, and, above all, in Birmingham where she appeared with Edward Lloyd (‘I will extol thee’, ‘Be with me still’, ‘The Bailiff’s Daughter of Islington’), in Smart’s Jacob with Shakespeare and Fanny Poole, in the Stabat Mater with Sinico, Rigby and Whitney, and The Creationalongside Pearson and Wadmore.

 

In July 1876, she made a rare return to London, to sing at the Philharmonic Society (‘From Mighty Kings’, Raubert’s ‘Cradle Song’) before returning to her native places to sing in concerts, in Judas Maccabeus, Elijah, the cantata John Gilpin, and -- in a stage first -- an amateur operetta, as Araminta in A Majority of One, or the Fatale Vote (26 April 1877) by the Anderton brothers. She briefly made the transition to the professional stage, appearing as Clara in The Siege of Rochelle with Carl Rosa, and subsequently as Arline in The Bohemian Girl in the English provinces.

However, in spite of good notices, she did not continue her operatic career, but returned to local concerts. She visited Wales, to sing again for Miss Bradwyn, in the company of Mr William Edward Fisher, a local amateur tenor, whose day job was as a fitter and engineer. On 9 August 1879, Emma would become Mrs Fisher. 

 

In the meanwhile, she sang The Seasons with Lloyd and Foli at Wolverhampton Festival, at the Birmingham Popular Concerts and in their Christmas Elijah, at Manchester (‘Soflty Sighs’,‘In questo semplice’) alongside McGuckin and Santley, at Huddersfield, Norwich (The Fairy Ring), Edinburgh with Carlotta Patti, Glasgow, Sheffield, and in Lincoln, giving Mendelssohn’s Loreley.

 

She visited London for some smaller concerts (Bow and Bromley with Brocolini, Jenny Viard Louis, Albert Hall, Stedman’s at the Birkbeck Institution) and ventured to Belfast for a Creation, and to Chesterfield, but, as ever, sang chiefly in her home region – the Harp Festival with Reeves, Judas Maccabeus, Elijah. She seemed to be dropping out of the musical world, following her marriage, but in September 1882 came a surprising announcement: Miss Beasley was to take the lead role, created by Florence St John, in Richard Barker’s tour of the comic opera Les Manteaux noirs. And she did. She played Girola alongside Madge Stavart, Arnold Breedon and C A White to an excellent reception. But once again, when that tour ended, nothing happened. Except, of course, babies.

 

She advertised in the trade press, but her one essay in theatrical comic opera was to remain just that. One.

 

Over the next 18 months she surfaced periodically. In a minor Messiah, in a Manchester concert, and I last spot her in late 1884, advertising ‘Madame Emma Beasley’s Concert Party’ in her home areas. They weren’t really ‘home areas’ anymore. The family had relocated to Willesden, London. Father was now a ‘wine merchant’ and a little Dora Julia Marie and Elsie Emmeline had been added to the family.

 

But the Beasley family was to undergo a change of fortune. Father Ben had been, throughout his life, a stutterer. He had cured himself, and now he set out to teach others how to overcome their handicap. At a price. In 1889, he took on Brampton Park House, in Huntingdonshire, as a school for stutterers and, with his wife and his sons-in-law as ‘professors of elocution’, ran a successful establishment for twenty years. He published two books and numerous treatises on his speciality, and maintained a lavish lifestyle at Brampton and at the ‘office’ in Willesden, which the family seems to have shared periodically.

 

I don’t know what happened next, but in 1901 and 1911 there is no sign of Mr Fisher. Emma can be seen in Brampton with boss Benjamin ('specialist and surgeon') and London respectively, in the censi, but no William Edward. Dora had married well (Mrs Thomas Greaves Waterhouse) in 1907, Elsie, the year after and even better, fringing the aristocracy as Mrs Cecil Massy Collier. Fitness-freak Leslie went off to the east to do something in rubber. But 1907 had been terrible year. Ben Beasley had died in a pub (which some said was appropriate) in Huntingdon, and Brampton Park House was hit by a massive fire. 

 

In 1911, Emma is living in Great Tichfield Street with her remaining daughter, Daisy Gertrude (b 7 November 1887; d Hendon 2 April 1969), who the census tells us is a vocalist. She is ‘married’ but there is no William. Daisy married actor Samuel George Herbert Mason in 1914, and in 1915 (14 August) son Lieutenant Leslie Benito Fisher (b 27 June 1885) was killed in France. He was listed as the son of the late William Edward Fisher, accountant, and Emma Louisa Fisher of Brampton Park. And Daisy says the same on her marriage banns. So does Elsie. 

 

Edgar? Accountant? Sigh. Well, William Edward is said to have died in Fulham 22 January 1912 leaving his £92 will to be executed by an ironmonger’s wife Florence Martha Dixon. Not his wife or his son? Had William Edward had done the classic mid-life thing and jumped ship? I think this must be another William Edward, though the family historians have taken him on board. And have also left us the portrait of Emma here included.

 

In 1921, Emma can be seen living at Broome Lodge, Sunninghill, with the Waterhouse family.

 

Emma died in 1926. Daisy’s husband executed her will. For what it was worth. She left a little over a hundred pounds.

 

Emma was a clearly worthy Victorian Vocalist. A rather wasted one, perhaps. She was still calling herself ‘vocalist’ in the 1911 census, long after she had ceased to sing. She was also chopping a decade off her age. Strange, this story. And Ben the stuttering gun-barrel-maker turned boozy pseudo-medico … evidently quite a character!

 

 

Avonia Bonney

 

This picture came up on ebay today. So since I had a wee article on file, I thought I'd pair them up ..

BONNEY, Avonia [Melvill] (b Cambridge, Mass 9 May 1854; d 60 Bay State Road, Boston 8 April 1910).

 

Avonia Bonney was one of the horde of young Victorian Americans who trouped to Europe in search of a musical education and prima donna-dom. Most postulants got some of the first, and very little of the second. But Avonia did very much better than most. Because she was not over-ambitious. She spent ten years in Italy and worked solidly, in leading roles, in the eight years between her debut and her return to America.

 

She was, it must be said, watched every step of the way by the folks back home, for Avonia was ‘somebody’, or rather related to ‘somebody’. Her Christian name told the tale. Her mother, who was born Caroline Emma Jones (b New York September 1838; d Cambridge, Mass 27 February 1924), was sister to the well-known actress Avonia Jones (Mrs Gustavus V Brooke), immortalised by Pinero as Avonia Bunn in Trelawney of the Wells. That meant, of course, that Emma was the daughter of the character who called himself ‘Count Joannes’ (George Jones), sometime actor and later laughing stock, and his first wife, Melinda Jones (actress). Emma had wed William Larrabee Bonney (b Maine 1823; d Boston 12 June 1896) ‘merchant, of Jordan, Marsh and Co’, on 28 August 1853, and Avonia was born in 1854. 

 

So, ‘the grand-daughter of Count Joannes’ got more coverage in the American press than most aspiring soprani, and – as in the paper Folio of 1873 -- it seems to have been surprisingly accurate.

 

The teenaged Avonia was educated at the New England Conservatoire until 1869, when her mother took her and her younger sister, Emma [Linda] (Mrs Brownlow, 1856-1899) to Italy to study. An early souvenir of their stay survives in the shape of a music sheet, Usiglio’s Le educande di Sorrento transcribed for piano and dedicated to the two girls.

 

The teacher chosen was Giuseppe Gerli of the Milan Conservatoire, and Avonia was put before the public for the first time, at all of seventeen years of age, as Amina in La Sonnambula at Alessandria in Piedmont. Sufficient success was achieved that, the following season, she was engaged for a five months’ season at the minor Teatro Balbo in Turin. I spot her there in Linda di Chamonix and as Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, and Folio assures us that she also sang Lucia di Lammermoor, Crispino e la comare andL’Elisir d’amore, all of which seem perfectly suitable to her light, high soprano. She also created the title-role in Giuseppe Bozzelli’s Caterina di Belp, but the young composer’s piece was not a success.

In 1873, I spot her at Barletta and nearby Bisceglie (Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Un ballo in maschera), in 1874, at Avellino (Linda di Chamonix, La Sonnambula) and the Teatro Communale, Pordenone (Don Pasquale), and subsequently at Salerno, Reggio Emilia, Malta, Voghera (Ines in L’Africaine). No Milans or Genoas or major theatres ... but leading roles in smaller venues and houses. When she ventured a Lucia at the Naples Teatro del Fondo, she was scoffed at by the unforgiving Neapolitan audiences as being inaudible. So it was back to Traviata at the Teatro Civico, Vigevano, and the Teatro Sociale of Varese, Ernani at the Cicconi Sant’ Elpidio, Ballo at Lecce, Traviata at the less pretentious Teatro Bellini in Naples, and at San Paolo …

 

Avonia Bonney had found her niche, and in houses and roles suited to her physical and vocal means, she had put together a well-stuffed professional life. However, it was coming to an end. In the last months of 1879, she went to her most esoteric prima donna engagement of all: at the Teatro Nuovo Reale on the island of Zakynthos. I see one local (?) Dionysus Mousmoutis has written an entire article on this episode (‘The soprano Avonia Bonney in the theatrical scene of Zakynthos’) … I just spot her doing Ruy Blas, Ballo and Rigoletto, this last in March 1880.

And by the time of the 1880 census of America, she is back at home with mother, father and sister … ‘professional singer’. But not very much, nor very often, nowadays. The opera-house years were over. Avonia settled down as a singing teacher, a profession which she would follow to the end of her days.

 

There were still events, however, to come in her life. Marriage and childbirth. That same 1880 census which has 25 year-old Avonia back home, shows a 15 year-old ship’s carpenter’s son, working as a farm labourer in Scituate, Mass. Transcripts of the Massachusetts registers show that Willis Abner Li[t]chfield (age 28) and Avonia Bonney (age 27) were wed in Boston 31 December 1887. It’s either a case of Victorian Scribal Error, or deliberate deception. Their son, Willis William Lichfield, tells us later that he was born in Paris, in 1887 or 1889 or 1890 … and here comes Avonia on a ship from Europe in July 1891 bringing with her a theoretically 11-month old son … who had been christened in London 15 September 1889. Born 23 May 1889.

 

Mr Lichfield sr (b Scituate 6 November 1864; d Scituate 1936) progressed to being a glass-cutter, then to working in stained glass, and Mrs Lichfield regressed steadily in her age, to the extent of chopping a decade off her birth date, as she worked on in the music profession as a ‘Voice Master for Grand Opera’. They family can be seen – husband, wife, mother Emma and two servants – at Boston’s 60 Bay State Road in the 1900 census.

 

Avonia died, at that address, at the age 55 years 10 months and 29 days, of pulmonary tuberculosis.

 

 

 

 

 

The Barnby Boys

 

 

The name of ‘Mr Barnby’ was a well-known one in Victorian cathedral and concert music, due to the activities of one family: five brothers.

Joseph Barnby

 

The five were the sons of Thomas Barnby (b York 29 January 1792; d Chapterhouse Street, York 23 October 1860) and his wife Barbara née Robinson (b York 3 July 1791; d York 13 May 1856) who were married in that city on 9 October 1814.  Six sons and three daughters, born over a period of twenty years, survived to adulthood.

 

The Dictionary of National Biography (for one son has earned his place therein), tells us that Thomas was an organist. Well, he may have been a musician for pleasure, as was the widespread custom of the times, but music was not his profession. The 1841 census confirms that he was a ‘shoemaker’, and the 1851 document confirms, more loftily, that he was a ‘boot and shoe manufacturer’. At his death, it was reported that he was ‘much respected’ in the city, so he possibly ended up a man of some substance.

 

He clearly had some interest and connection with music, however, for five of his sons in turn were sent to Matthew Camidge, the organist of York Minster, for musical education at a young age, and all five became, in their turn, boy choristers at the Cathedral.

 

The first son, William, (b Girdler Gate, York, x 29 December 1816; d St Mary’s House, York 24 February 1895) was to make his whole career in York. After his stint as ‘Master Barnby’, he became a counter tenor chorister at the Minster. Over the years, he was also organist at St Crux, music master at St Peter’s School, connected with St Olave’s Church in various capacities and, most notably, music master at the Yorkshire School from the Blind. The School was founded in 1835, and, in December of the year, teenaged William became its first music teacher, a position he held for the whole of his career. At his death, he was succeeded by his son, Louis Hague Barnby.

 

Robert BARNBY (b York, 28 October 1820; d 9 St George’s Square, London, 1 June 1875) followed his brother from the ranks of boys, to a place as a counter tenor at the Minster, and was active in local music making until February 1841, when he won an appointment to the choir of St Paul’s Cathedral. He went quickly into action as a public singer: on 24 May 1841, he was a tenor soloist in the concert of the Sacred Harmonic Society. Thereafter, he followed the career of a successful church musician in London, singing with glee parties and such groups as the Purcell Club and the Round, Catch and Glee Club, he appeared in the semi-chorus at the Norwich Festival on the occasion of the English premiere of Spohr’s Last Judgement, he sang in the concerts of Ancient Music for a number of years, and in supporting alto roles in oratorio. In 1845, he was appointed a lay vicar at Westminster Abbey, and in 1847 a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. In 1850, while appearing at the Gloucester Festival, he was called upon to sing the contralto music of an ailing Charlotte Dolby.

Robert Barnby

For the next quarter of a century Robert Barnby was seen regularly featured in part-music and choral situations: at the wedding of the Princess Royal, in Edward Land’s group at the Surrey Garden, at the Mansion House at many a banquet, for the Royal Society of Musicians, the Royal General Theatrical Fund and other ‘royal’ occasions, in line with his position at the Chapel Royal, St James’s. Shortly before his death, he could be seen appearing as counter-tenor with a group including Montem Smith, G T Carter, Horscroft/Hilton and William Winn, at the Albert Hall and the Crystal Palace.

 

Third son Thomas (1822-1894) preferred initially to follow his father into the boot and shoe business, but ended up a baker and grocer in Berkshire, but fourth son Henry BARNBY (b Swinegate, York 14 September 1826; d Slough 2 April 1885) put things back on a musical footing.

Henry performed as a soloist as a boy, and featured, from 1839, in the concerts of the York Choral Society as well as at the Cathedral. As an adult, he bucked the family’s falsetto trend and became a bass, leaving York Minster for, successively, Carlisle Cathedral, Armagh Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and ultimately for St George’s Chapel Windsor, where he would remain for twenty-eight years. 

During the 1850s, Henry performed with the Sacred Harmonic Society, the London Sacred Harmonic Society, at the oratorios at St Martin’s Hall, seconding such as Lewis Thomas, Weiss, Santley and Belletti in St Paul, Elijah, Israel in Egypt etc . He took part in the 1852 (‘a voice of good quality .. correct’) and 1855 Hereford Festivals, and the 1861 Choral Festival at Westminster Abbey, but in the 1860s performed largely his duties in chapel and concert in Windsor and Eton.

Henry married (9 December 1853) Charlotte [Icely] WARMAN (b Lower Road, Deptford 14 June 1835; d Windsor ?30 July 1877), a young vocalist, ‘pupil of George Smart’. As Mrs Henry Barnby, she would come into her own in the 1860s, singing in concert with the Barnby family, the principal soprano music (with her husband in the title-role) in Elijah, oratorio in Oxford, and even guesting at the prestigious Boosey Ballad concerts in London, before her early death.

 

While the other Barnby brothers stayed in Britain, and mostly found long-secure jobs within the musical (or grocery) establishment, Frederick BARNBY (b York, 26 September 1828; d Montreal, Canada, 30 September 1865) had a less steady life. Frederick started off as a Minster chorister and ‘pupil of Dr Camidge’, and shows up, from 1845, as organist, variously, at Pontefract Church, Lower Mitton Church in Stourport, Kirkgate Chapel in Bradford, Holywood Church, Belfast  -- and after an inglorious bankruptcy – in 1858 he was appointed to St Paul’s, Birmingham. Once again, he did not stay long. In June 1859, he quit wife and family and sailed for Canada, where he was engaged at the Protestant Cathedral, Montreal. Like everyone else, Canada liked him (‘the first church organist in Canada … his taste and skill are unequalled in this country’) or his talents, but not for very long. Frederick died in Canada, aged 38.

 

James BARNBY (b York 29 April 1832; d West Coker, Yeovil, December 1916) became a lay vicar at Hereford Cathedral, before taking on a similar post at St Paul’s Cathedral, where he remained as a vicar choral and, latterly, dean. His son Sidney Percy BARNBY(b Hereford 1854; d 9 Stracey Road, Harlesden, 31 October 1907) carried on the family tradition, spending thirty-three years with the St Paul’s choir as an alto.

Joseph Barnby

The last son of Thomas and Barbara’s family was the one that earned the family its place in the reference books. Joseph BARNBY (b York 12 August 1838; d 20 St George’s Square, London 28 January 1896) won his laurels not as a vocalist, but as a conductor and composer. He instituted a choral association in 1867, and held an important place in the oratorio concert-world of London when, for some seasons, he led the Royal Albert Hall oratorio concerts. He ended his career as principal of the Guildhall School of Music. He was knighted for his well-recorded musical deeds (which I, thus, have no need to record), a few years before his death.