Charles Dibdin

For his son, the English dramatist, composer, writer and theatre proprietor, see Charles Dibdin the younger.

Charles Dibdin (1745 - 25 July 1814) was an English musician, songwriter, dramatist, novelist and actor, in his time the most prolific English singer-songwriter.

Charles Dibdin (1745-1814). Portrait by Thomas Phillips (died 1845), 1799. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Life

Overview

Dibdin, born at Southampton, began his literary career at 16 with a drama, The Shepherd's Artifice. His fame, however, rests on his sea songs, which are unrivalled, and include "Tom Bowling," "Poor Jack," and "Blow High Blow Low." He is said to have written over 1200 of these, besides many dramatic pieces and 2 novels, Hannah Hewitt (1792) and The Younger Brother (1793), and a History of the Stage (1795).

Youth and education

Dibdin, the son of a parish clerk, was born at Southampton on or before the 4th of March 1745, the youngest of a family of 18. His parents designing him for the church, he was sent to Winchester; but his love of music early diverted his thoughts from the clerical profession.

After receiving some instruction from the organist of Winchester cathedral, where he was a chorister from 1756 to 1759, he went to London at the age of 15. Here he was placed in a music warehouse in Cheapside, but he soon abandoned this employment to become a singing actor at Covent Garden.

Career

On 21st May 1762 his 1st work, an operetta titled The Shepherd’s Artifice, with both words and music by himself, was produced at Covent Garden. Other works followed, his reputation being firmly established by the music to the play of The Padlock, produced at Drury Lane under Garrick’s management in 1768, the composer himself taking the part of Mungo with conspicuous success.

Dibdin continued for some years to be connected with Drury Lane, both as composer and as actor, and produced during this period 2 of his best known works, The Waterman (1774) and The Quaker (1775). A quarrel with Garrick led to the termination of his engagement.

In The Comic Mirror he ridiculed prominent contemporary figures through the medium of a puppet show. In 1782 he became joint manager of the Royal circus, afterwards known as the Surrey theatre. In 3 years he lost this position owing to a quarrel with his partner. His opera Liberty Hall, containing the successful songs “Jock Ratlin,” “The Highmettled Racer,” and “The Bells of Aberdovey,” was produced at Drury Lane theatre on 8 February 1785.

In 1788 he sailed for the East Indies, but the vessel having put in to Torbay in stress of weather, he changed his mind and returned to London. In a musical variety entertainment called The Oddities, he succeeded in winning marked popularity with a number of songs that included “’Twas in the good ship ‘Rover’,” “Saturday Night at Sea,” “I sailed from the Downs in the ‘Nancy,’” and the immortal “Tom Bowling,” written on the death of his eldest brother, Captain Thomas Dibdin, at whose invitation he had planned his visit to India.

A series of monodramatic entertainments which he gave at his theatre, Sans Souci, in Leicester Square, brought his songs, music and recitations more prominently into notice, and permanently established his fame as a lyric poet. It was at these entertainments that he first introduced many of his sea-songs.

The 3-act novelties of each season, or Entertainments Sans-Souci, and their sequels, were as follows:

• The Whim of the Moment, or, Nature in Little – Auction rooms, King Street, Covent Garden.
• The Oddities (1789) – Lyceum.
• The Wags, or, The Camp of Pleasure (1790) – Lyceum.
• Private Theatricals, or Nature in Nubibus (1791) – Royal Polygraphic Rooms, The Strand; followed by The Coalition, a compilation from the preceding.
• The Quizzes, or, A Trip to Elysium (1792); followed by a compilation from all the preceding.
• Castles in the Air (1793)
• Great News, or, A Trip to the Antipodes (1794) – followed by an Ode in honour of the royal marriage.
• The Will o' the Wisp (1795) – followed by Christmas Gambols
• The General Election (1796) – the first production at Dibdin's new Theatre Sans Souci; followed by Datchet mead, in honour of the marriage of the Princess Royal.
• The Sphinx (1797); followed by a Christmas piece The Goose and the Gridiron.
• The Tour to the Land's End (1798); followed by King and Queen (one act).
• Tom Wilkins (1799).
• The Cake-house (1800).
• A Frisk (1801).
• Most Votes (1802).
• Britons, Strike Home (1803). This included a series of war-songs with military-band accompaniments.
• In 1804 there was a one-act novelty Valentine's Day, and three compilations of older pieces, namely The Election (from Most Votes); The Frolic (from Britons, Strike Home); and, A trip to the Coast.
• Heads and Tails (1805); followed by Cecilia, or the Progress of Industry.
• Professional Volunteers (1808). (Given at the Lyceum during Lent, supported by professional assistants, though still, after 48 years before the public, playing his own accompaniments).
• The Rent-day, or, The Yeoman's Friend (1808) – Sans-Pareil Theatre (later the Adelphi Theatre) in the Strand.
• Commodore Pennant (1809) – the last of these entertainments, a slight piece, was given in a room in the author's shop in the Strand.

During this period he opened a music shop in the Strand, but the venture was a failure.

His 2 sons, Charles and Thomas John Dibdin, whose works are often confused with those of their father, were also popular dramatists in their day.

Dibdin died of paralysis in London on 25 July 1814.

Writing

Besides his Musical Tour through England (1788), his Professional Life, an autobiography published in 1803, a History of the Stage (1795), and several smaller works, he wrote upwards of 1400 songs and about 30 dramatic pieces. He also wrote the following novels: The Devil (1785); Hannah Hewitt (1792); The Younger Brother (1793).

His sea-songs powerfully influenced the national spirit. The words breathe the simple loyalty and dauntless courage that are the cardinal virtues of the British sailor, and the music was appropriate and naturally melodious. Their effect in stimulating and ennobling the spirit of the navy during the war with France was so marked as to call for special acknowledgment.

An edition of his songs by G. Hogarth (1843) contains a memoir of his life.

Recognition

File:Grave of Sir John Barrow and monument to Charles Dibdin - geograph.org.uk - 654411.jpg

Celtic cross memorial to Dibdin, erected by public subscription in 1889, St. Martin's Gardens, Camden Town

In 1803 Dibdin was rewarded by the government with a pension of £200 a year, of which he was only for a time deprived under the administration of Lord Grenville.

7 years after his death a subscription to raise a monument to Dibdin was set in train under the patronage of the Duke of Clarence and Admiral Sir George York. At a public dinner and concert a large sum was raised, but insufficient to complete the project. A second grand musical entertainment, The Feast of Neptune, raised a further £400 and the monument was eventually raised in the Veterans' Library at the Royal Hospital, Greenwich.

British politician Michael Heseltine is a distant descendant of Dibdin, having 'Dibdin' as one of his middle names. He is a fan of Dibdin's works, and was responsible for the government's erection of a statue of Dibdin in Greenwich.

On the west face of the tower of Holyrood Church in Southampton is a memorial plaque to Dibdin, where he is described as a "native of Southampton, poet, dramatist and composer, author of Tom Bowling, Poor Jack and other sea songs".

In 1889 a celtic cross memorial was erected, by public subscription, in St Martin's Gardens, Camden Town, after his original tomb collapsed. A verse from "Tom Bowling" is inscribed upon it:

His form was of the manliest beauty,

His heart was kind and soft,

Faithful, below, he did his duty;

But now he's gone aloft.

In popular culture

The tune of "Tom Bowling" forms part of the medley of English sea-songs customarily played on the Last Night of the Proms. Mr Verdant Green, eponymous hero of the novel by Cuthbert Bede, learns to row and "feathers his oars with skill and dexterity" (Part II Chapter VI), borrowing a line from Dibdin's song "The Jolly Young Waterman." Victorian baritone Sir Charles Santley made his farewell performance at Covent Garden in 1911 in the role of Tom Tug in Dibdin's opera The Waterman. And in James Joyce's story "Eveline" (from Dubliners), Frank "sang about the lass that loves a sailor" from the song of the same name (also called "The standing toast") by Dibdin.

Charles Dickens quotes from Dibdin's patriotic song "The Tight Little Island" in Little Dorrit:

Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say,
"If ever I lived upon dry land.
The spot I should hit on would be little Britain!"
Says Freedom, "Why that's my own little island!"
Oh, it's a snug little island!
A right little, tight little island,
Search the globe round, none can be found
So happy as this little island.

The song was published posthumously in 1841 in Songs, Naval and National, of the Late Charles Dibdin, a collection arranged by Thomas Dibdin with sketches by George Cruikshank. A copy was found in Dickens's library after his death, though it is unlikely Dickens heard the same patriotic message as much of Dibdin's audience.

Just before his marriage, James Boswell wrote a song, "A Matrimonial Thought" which was given a tune "by the very ingenious Mr. Dibden."

In the blithe days of honey-moon,
With Kathe's allurements smitten,
I lov'd her late, I lov'd her soon
And I called her dearest kitten.
But now my kitten's grown a cat,
And cross like other wives,
O! by my soul, my honest Mat,
I fear she has nine lives.

See also

Charles Dibdin - Tom Bowling (Robert Tear)

• List of English-language songwriters
• List of English-language playwrights

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Dibdin, Charles". Encyclopædia Britannica. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 175. 
• "Memoir," in C. Dibdin, Sea Songs: A new edition. London, H.G. Clarke & Hayward and Adam 1846, v–xi.
• Charles Dibdin, [The Musical Tour of Mr Dibdin; in which, previous to his embarkation to India, he finished his career as a public character (For the author, by J. Gales, Sheffield 1788). Read here.

External links

• Free scores by Charles Dibdin at the International Music Score Library Project