London Born Composers of Classical Music

[giles.enders]

London Born Composers of Classical Music.

I compiled this list over some time, wondering if any had blue plaques where they were born.  Of the many composers born in London, I can only find only one who is not 'Unsung', Arthur Sullivan.  I have included 'Greater London' and in Arthur Hinton's case gone as far as Beckenham.

There is also a posting for Birmingham composers

Richard Stewart Addinsell  1904-1977 Bloomsbury
Emanuel Abraham Aguilar  1824 - 1904  Clapham, London
Thomas Augustine Arne 28.5.1710- 5.3.1778 Covent Garden
Michael Arne 1740-1786 Covent Garden
Richard Anthony Sayer Arnell 1917-2009 Hampstead
Samuel Arnold  1740-1802  London
Ernest John Austin  1874-1947  London
Frederick William Austin  1872-1952  Hammersmith
Thomas Attwood  1765-1838  London

Edgar Leslie Bainton  1880-1956  Hackney
Henry Charles Banister 1831-1897
Arthur Barclay (Jones) he discarded his surname  1869-1943 London
Granville Ransome Bantock  1868-1946  London
Alfred Henry Barley  1872- 1941  Stoke Newington,  London
Ethel Barns  1874-1948  Islington, London
John Francis Barnett  16.10.1837- 24.11.1916  London
Arnold Edward Trevor Bax  1883-1953  Streatham
Sydney Baynes  1879-1938  London
Herbert Bedford 1867-1945  London
Francesco Berger 1834-1923  London
Henry Rowley Bishop  1786-1885 Finchley
Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss  1892-1975  Barnes
Edwin York Bowen  1884-1961  Crouch End, Hornsey
Kathleen Bruckshaw  1877-1921  Islington  (Catherine Mary Bruckshaw)
Percy Carter Buck  1871-1947  West Ham
Herbert Bunning 1863-1937  London
Thomas Busby  1755-1838   Westminster, London
Alan Dudley Bush  1900-1995  Dulwich
Geoffrey Bush  1920-1998  Willesden
William Busch 1901-1945  London
George Sainton Kaye Butterworth  London 1885-1916

James Calkin  1786-1862  London
John Babtiste Calkin  16.3.1827 - 15.3.1905
Alfred Cellier  1844-1891  Hackney
Edmund Thomas Chipp   25.12.1823 - 17.12.1886
Julian Seymour Clifford  1877-1921  London
Avril Coleridge-Taylor  1903-1998  South Norwood
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor  1875-1912  Bloomsbury
Lawrence Arthur Collingwood  1887-1982  London
Frederick Corder  1852-1932  Hackney
Paul Walford Corder 1879-1922 London
Claudius H Couldery  1842-1930  Lewisham
Edric Cundell   1893-1961  Kentish Town, London ( full name Henry Edric Arnold Griffenhagen Cundell)
William George Cusins  14.10.1833 - 31.10.1893  London

Benjamin James Dale  1885-1943  Holloway
Harold Edwin Darke  1888-1976   London
Norman Demuth  1898-1968  Croydon
Thomas Frederick Dunhill  1877-1946  Hampstead
Thomas Saunders Dupuis 1733- 17.6.1796  London

Katharine Eggar  1874-1961  St.Pancras, London

Ernest Bristow Farrer  1885-1918  Lewisham
Myles Birket Foster  1851-1922
Peter Racine Fricker  1920-1990  Wood Green

Henry Robert Gadsby  1842-1907  Hackney
Henry Balfour Gardiner  1877-1950  London
Claude Gascoigne  1884-19? Leyton, Essex, now Greater London
Guillaume Ignace Gibsone  1826-1897  London
Eugene Goosens III  1893-1962  London
John D H Greenwood  1889-1975  Kensington
Annie Grimson  15,5.1870-9.10.1949  Pimlico

John William Harmston 1823- 26.8.1881
Clement Harris  1871-1897  Wimbledon
Fritz Hart  1874-1949  Deptford
Charles Henry Welton Hickin  16.9.1876 - 3.5.1934  Lambeth, London
Arthur Hinton  1869-1941  Beckenham
Joseph Holbrooke  1878-1958  Croydon
Charles Horsley  1822-1876  London
William Horsley  1774-1858  Kensington
William Yeates Hurlstone  1876-1906  West Brompton, Kensington

Frank Idle  1866-1944

Arthur Herbert Jackson  1852-1881
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob  1895-1984 Norwood, South London
Arthur Barclay Jones  1869-1943

Oliver Arthur King 1855-1923
Bluebell Klean  1875-1950  Bloomsbury

Isidore de Lara (Coehn)  1858-1935  London
Leonard Constant Lambert  1905-1951  Fulham
Walter Leigh  1905-1942  Wimbledon
Henry David Leslie 1822-1896  London
Henry Charles Litolff  1818-1891  Marylebone

George MacFarren  1813-1887  Westminster
Walter MacFarren  1826-1905  Westminster
George William Marshall Hall    1862-1915  London
John Henry Maunder  1858-1920  Chelsea
Tobias Matthay  1858-1945  London
Joseph Mazzinghi  1765-1844  London
Percy Hilder Miles  1878-1922  Erith, Bexley Greater London
Lionel John Alexander Monckton  1861-1924   London
Elizabeth Mounsey  1819-1905  Hoxton
Thomas Molleson Mudie  1808-1866  London
Herbert Murrill  1909-1952  Tooting

Henry Cotter Nixon  1842-1907  London

Norman O'Neill 1875-1934  Kensington

Montague Phillips  1885-1969  Tottenham
Percy Pitt 1870-1932  London
Cipriani Potter  1792-1871  Paddington, London (Philip Cipriani Hambly Potter)
Oliviera Louisa Prescott  1842-1919  London

Percy Reeve  1855-1897
Leopold Joseph Roeckel  11.4.1838 - 1923
Walter Rothwell  1872-1927  London

Albert Edward Sammons 1886-1957 London
Frances Ethel Scarborough  10.1.1880- 9.12.1956  Crouch End, London
William Shakespeare  1849-1931  Croydon  (John William Thomas Shakespeare)
Alice Mary Smith  1839-1884  London
Ethel Mary Smythe  1858-1944  London
Kaikhosru Sorabji  1892-1988  Chingford
Joseph William Speaight  1868-1947  Haggerston, London
John Stainer  1840-1901  London
Charles Edward Stephens  1821-1892
Morton Stephenson  1884- 19XX  London
Reginald Steggall  1867-1938  London
Charles Edward Stephens  1821-1892  London
Elizabeth Stirling  1819-1895  Greenwich
Stephen Storace  1862-1796  Marylebone
Arthur Seymour Sullivan  1842-1900  Lambeth
Edith Mary Swepstone  1862-1942  Stepney

Michael Kemp Tippett 1905-1998  London
Frank E Tours  1877-  London
Charles Abraham Trew 1854-1929  Marylebone. London

Simon Waley Waley  1827-1875  Stockwell
Thomas Attwood Walmisley  1814-1856
Ivor Walsworth  1909-1978  London
Richard Henry Walthew  1872-1951  London
John Charles Ward  1835 - 1919  Clapton, London
Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine) 1894-1930
John Fane, Earl of Westmoreland  1784-1859
Dora White  18xx - 19xx  London
Felix White  1884- 1945  London
John Jesse White 1833-1916  Bermondsey
Healy Willan 1880-1968  Balham, London
Philip Hamilton Williams  1873-19?  Highbury, London
Thomas Wingham  1846-1893  London
Ralph Walter Wood  1902-1957  Tottenham

Plus an honorary mention Of George Grove  1829-1900  Clapham

[Paul Barasi]

North London doesn't come off best quality compared with South of the River!

[eschiss1]

+Percy Hilder Miles (born Erith, Bexley, 1878, died 1922).

(Wikipedia apparently considers Barnes a suburb of London, but I don't know the area - I do wonder about considering Bliss and Bax unsung. Less sung, but they did serve as Masters of the Royal Music (then again, so have Williamson and Maxwell Davies. Well- on the third foot, it suggests some local temporary notoriety will follow. Hrm. Dunno. And Addinsell is known for a piece if not for himself. Well.. hrm. ...)

[Jimfin]

And on the other hand, Sullivan is fairly unsung, apart from the Savoy operas, and a lot of people who know those wouldn't know the composer's first name (nor whether he was Gilbert or Sullivan)

[giles.enders]

I have included in this list ALL the composers I can find, sung and unsung and included those with dates which would not normally feature on this forum, like wise by 'London', I have used the term with a little license. The list demonstrates that if you wanted your child to be a famous composer, London was not the best place to be born.  There were a number of others who had composed Operas and Overtures for example, who were so obscure that I omitted them. 

[Delicious Manager]

To conclude - London must have the record for Unsung Composers

Considering that, at the time of the birth of these composers, London was the largest city in the world, I suppose, by the law of averages, it's hardly surprising.

[Jimfin]

Can we add William Hurlstone, born in Kensington in 1876?

[giles.enders]

Can't think why I missed Hurlstone.  He is on my list and I have even visited the house.  When I was researching him in 2006, I went to look at the house which happened to be for sale so I posed as a potential buyer and had a tour.  How is that for good timing?

[eschiss1]

(Hurlstone, he edits in. It's ok, Mr. Miles, some of us remember you, even if your three published works are, I admit, maybe promising - well, I like the string sextet.)

+
John William Harmston (born 1823).
Albert Sammons (violinist and teacher primarily, true) also composed, including an enjoyable and not at all tossed-off string quartet, and was born in London. Another for the list...
Not only Alice Smith but Dame Ethel Mary Smyth (1858-1944) too was born in London.

[albion]

I'm dumbfounded as to why there has been no mention of Henry Robert Gadsby (1842-1907), born in Hackney ...



... and I suppose that we should also include Granville Bantock (1868-1946) as he was yet another born in London.

[Alan Howe]

I'm surprised, given the size of our capital, that there weren't/aren't more.... After all, the population's about the same size as that of Austria. Wonder who'd win that competition?

[albion]

I'm surprised, given the size of our capital, that there weren't/aren't more

There were/ are more - many, many more!

There were a number of others who had composed Operas and Overtures for example, who were so obscure that I omitted them.

If you trawl through Brown and Stratton's British Musical Biography (1897) they soon come out of the woodwork.

[Alan Howe]

Wonder how many of them belong in the woodwork, though? 

[Lionel Harrsion]

Referring to Giles's initial "wondering if any [of these London-born composers] had blue plaques where they were born", Samuel Coleridge-Taylor has a blue plaque although it's not where he was born but at 30 Dagnall Park, Selhurst, where he lived between 1900 and 1902.  I can't imagine that any of the others has one, although I'd be glad to be proved wrong.  The prime candidate, one might have thought, was Sullivan but Bolwell Terrace where he was born has long long since been demolished and the mansion block in Victoria Street in which he lived for many years disappeared in the 1960s to be replaced by a revolting and brutal concrete horror.

[Jimfin]

I know this isn't our era, but one decidedly sung composer, Henry Purcell, was born in Westminster. But for myself, having been born in the English countryside, I am biased enough to suppose that many of our best composers were also rural in birth, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Britten...