Today I was doddling along trying to clear up some minor details for Bryan Kesselmann's A Lost Chord project.
Well, he/we sorted out the identity of the lady who called herself 'Rita', I found out that William Pinney of Exeter, who may have been the first to set Miss Procter's words, was the father of Sir Herbert Beerbohm ka Tree's mistress and thus the grandfather of Carol Reed and the great-grandfather of actor Oliver Reed, and that left me with Annie E Armstrong.
So I dove. And after an hour or so something started to appear familiar. Sister Jessie Fearon Armstrong? Not many of those about. I had been here before. Years ago .. but before ... so I dove a little deeper ...
into my very ancient notes ...
ARMSTRONG, Eleanor (b Camberwell, 19 August 1839; d National Hospital, Queen Square, 10 February 1896) Thomas Armstrong ex Elizabeth Ann nee GARDNER
notice in Deal C41 Henry 80 Eleanor 75 Gardner w dtr Eliza 35 also Elizabeth Armstrong 30 (mama) Charles 3 and Alfred 7mths
C51 6 Trinity Square Lambeth: Eleanor Gardner 34 boarding house keeper; b-i-l Thomas A Collector gas company b Paddington; Eliza A wife, Emma 15 Charles 13 Eleanor 11 Alfred B 9 Harriet 7 Jessie F 6 Catherine 3
ARMSTRONG, Eleanor (b Camberwell, 19 August 1839; d National Hospital, Queen Square, 10 February 1896)
A decidedly capable soprano, Eleanor Armstrong was appreciatively heard in the London and provincial concerts through the 1860s and the 1870s.
Miss Armstrong was born in Camberwell, the second daughter of London-born Thomas Armstrong, a collector for a gas company (and later an accountant and auditor in his own right), and his wife Elizabeth Ann née Gardner, who hailed from Deal in Kent. She was given her vocal training by Frank Mori, and appears to have made her first appearance on the concert stage at the age of 20 (27 November 1858) at the Crystal Palace, The Portuguese soprano Maria de Villar shared the vocal duties for the occasion, and gave ‘Robert, toi que j’aime’. Miss Armstrong stuck, more modestly, to ‘Deh vieni non tardar’ and her teacher’s song ‘The Syren’, and was gratified with approving notices (‘a sweet soprano and sings pleasingly’).
Ten days later, she encountered tougher competition, when she made her first appearance at St James’s Hall, alongside not only Miss de Villar but Georgina Weiss, Harriet Tennant, Georgina Stabbach and Charlotte Dolby, as well as Tennant, Weiss and Sims Reeves. She gave her ‘Syren Song’ again and the ‘very young aspirant’ ‘produced a favourable impression’.
Eleanor Armstrong was heard in a number of concerts during the 1859 season, and on 30 June the young vocalist mounted her first own concert at the Hanover Square Rooms. Isabella Amadei, the Belgian tenor Edmond Depret, Allan Irving, Harriet Henrie and Paul Standish were her guests, and her own contribution won her sterling notices. ‘A young singer of much promise’ ‘decided ability’ ‘Her voice is a true soprano, not very strong but clear and telling. Her accomplishment of ‘Batti, Batti’ was more than creditable and well deserved the encore it obtained’. Eleanor’s other items included Balfe’s ‘The Power of Love’ and Miss Augusta Cowell’s ‘The Lonely Harp’. For the next fifteen seasons, Miss Eleanor Armstrong’s Concert would be a fixture of the concert calendar.
In 1860 (16 May) Laura Baxter, W H Cummings and Herr Eibenschütz of Pesth, shared the bill and Eleanor delivered ‘Non temer’, ‘Flow on, o silver Rhine’ and duetted ‘Dolce conforto’ with Laura Baxter, in 1861 (7 May) George Perren and Miss Baxter shared the vocal duties and in 1862 (9 January, Westbourne Hall) Miss Armstrong produced a larger bill including Louisa Vinning, Miss Poole, Annie Lascelles, Matilda Bradshaw and John Morgan. Her own contribution ranged from an aria from Roberto Devereux and ‘Parigi o cara’ with Morgan to ’Kathleen Mavourneen’ and ‘A thousand miles from thee’. On 1 July she mounted a second concert at the Hanover Square Rooms with Perren, Suchet Champion, de Fontanier and Miss Lascelles.
In those same years, she was seen in various personal concerts (Miss Baxter, Oberthur, Henry Morley, Phineas E van Noorden, J Theodore Petters &c) and she also returned on a number of occasions to the Crystal Palace concerts, giving pieces such as the Dinorah Shadow song, ‘Where art thou wandering, little child?’, ‘Bel raggio’, ‘Ah fors’è lui’, ‘L’amor suo’ ‘The beating of my own heart’ and ‘Flow on, o silver Rhine’ to consistent praise: ‘one of the most promising beginners we have heard in a long time’, ‘a high clear soprano with a good deal of natural flexibility’, a highly promising singer’ ‘exhibited such good taste and skill and showed such a nice voice withal that the audience were delighted’.
I notice her, in 1862, singing the title role in The May Queen in one concert and taking the soprano part in The Messiah at Windsor (‘she is a great favourite in Windsor’). By and large, however, she limited herself to concert appearances, and if most of these were in the less showy and less Italianate performances of the year, I do spot her in one of Howard Glover’s vast affairs, in 1863, singing his ‘We have wandered through the meadows’, duetting Norma with Emily Spiller and taking part in a quartet with Miss Spiller, Eleonora Wilkinson and Emily Soldene. In 1863 she gave a matinée musicale at Conway Lodge with the Weisses, Miss Baxter and Thomas Dyson and, in 1864, another Hanover Square concert (11 June) in which Perren, J G Patey and Annie Lascelles featured, This time Eleanor gave ‘Non credea mirarti’, ‘Jungfrau Maria’, ‘The Merry Flowergirl’ and ‘I Naviganti’, and the soloists joined in the Rigoletto quartet. She brought out her Sonnambula aria again for her 1865 concert (23 May, ‘a charming voice and a highly commendable style’) and also ventured Ganz’s celebrated ‘Nightingale’s Trill’ with ‘marked success’. In 1866 (23 May) it was ‘Qui la voce’, ‘The Days That are no More’ and the Trill.
Miss Eleanor Armstrong was tackling the warhorses of the coloratura soprano repertoire with consistent success, but she also introduced a number of less known pieces including new songs by Charles Fowler, by Francesco Berger (‘Song for Twilight’), by Henry Morley (O, Sister Sing the Song I Love’), Walstein (‘We will not forget thee’) and the ‘Deep in my soul’ composed by Catherine Armstrong. Catherine (1847-1898) was Eleanor’s youngest sister – of the other Armstrong girls, Jessie, so the censi tell us, became an ‘authoress’ and Annie a ‘composer’ -- and she would have a modest career as a vocalist and a composer of songs. Annie wrote 'gel's stories' and set bits of Hans Andersen, Dickens et al, as well as having a crack (post-Sullivan) at 'A Lost Chord'.
In between her London engagements, and her teaching, Eleanor Armstrong regularly visited other parts of the country, performing on a number of occasions in Edinburgh and over an extended period in 1870-1 as vocalist with Charles Halle and Mme Norman-Neruda in their concerts throughout the country. Her annual concert remained, however, her principal shop window. In 1867 (22 June) she held it at the Marchioness of Downshire’s home (‘Robert, toi que j’aime’, ‘Quanto amore’ ‘The Lover and the Bird’, ‘Deep in my soul’, ‘Legères hirondelles with Jules Lefort), in 1868 (24 June) at the Beethoven Rooms (‘Jours de mon enfance’, ‘Quanto amore’, Catherine’s ‘Vieni’), in 1869 at the Hanover Square Rooms (‘a very pleasant sympathetic voice, wanting perhaps in power but strong enough for the ordinary concert room’) with a bill including the Pateys, Elena Angele, Edith Wynne, Mme Liebhart, Carl Stepan, Edwin Ransford and Harley Vinning. In 1870 (24 June) Mathilde Enequist, Megan Watts and Lefort were among the performers, and in 1871 (20 June), Anna Drasdil and Trelawny Cobham joined other old friends in a concert in which Benedict’s The Legend of Saint Cecilia was featured. ‘One of our most agreeable young vocalists’, nodded the music press after her performances of ‘She wandered down the mountainside’, ‘La fioraja’ and some concerted music. In 1872 (5 July) she mounted a fashionable bill of Drasdil, Lefort, Caravoglia and Cobham for a matinée musicale at 69 Eaton Square.
The 1873 concert (27 May, St George’s Hall) was the occasion for Catherine to make her first appearance as a professional vocalist, on an almost identical bill, and the next year (20 June, Hanover Square Rooms) she again appeared. In 1876 (27 June), the concert was announced as being given by the two sisters together. The two hosted the annual event again in 1878 and 1879, at 6 Cromwell Houses.
Eleanor Armstrong had now been before the public as a singer for twenty years, performing ‘with excellent effect’ and always to pleased notices for both her voice and her style. If her career had not been as colourful and glamorous as some, and she had, of course, never attempted the stage, she had nevertheless been a well-liked presence in the British musical world for two full decades. Now, however – for she was not the ‘Mademoiselle Elena [actually, Helen] Armstrong’ who toured briefly with the Campobello opera co in 1881 -- she faded from the scene, leaving Catherine to continue just a little longer in the field where she had shone.
She spent her latter years housekeeping for her brother, Charles, at 23 Ipplepin Road, South Tottenham, and died in Holborn’s National Hospital in 1896, recordedly of the rare condition of a sarcoma of the sphenoid bone. The trade press failed to notice the occasion.
C61 at 36, Osnaburgh Street, St Pancras, London:
Anne E Armstrong abt 1853 St Pancras, Middlesex, England Daughter St Pancras Middlesex
Catherine Armstrong abt 1847 Newington, Surrey, England Daughter St Pancras Middlesex
Eleanor Armstrong abt 1839 Camberwell, Surrey, England Daughter St Pancras Middlesex
Elizabeth Annie Armstrong abt 1810 Deal, Kent, England Wife St Pancras Middlesex
Jessie Fearon Armstrong b 26 March 1845 Camberwell, Surrey, England Daughter St Pancras Middlesex
Thomas Armstrong abt 1805 Marylebone, Middlesex, England Head St Pancras Middlesex
Eleanor Gardner abt 1813 Deal, Kent, England Sister-in-law St Pancras Middlesex
Thomas is an "auditor & accountant", Eleanor Armstrong is "vocalist", Jessie, Catherine & Anne are "scholars". Eleanor Gardner is "housekeeper" as well as sister-in-law.
C71 Thomas 65, Elizabeth 60, Jessie 26, Anne 17, Edith granddaughter 5 at 60 Burlington Rd
C91 Elizabeth with Harriet C Bartlett 47 dtr both widows plus sister Jessie authoress, Annie E composer
Annie, composer. That's she.
And here's the story of Eleanor, who was not the least among Victorian Vocalists
Anne E Armstrong abt 1853 St Pancras, Middlesex, England Daughter St Pancras Middlesex
Catherine Armstrong abt 1847 Newington, Surrey, England Daughter St Pancras Middlesex
Eleanor Armstrong abt 1839 Camberwell, Surrey, England Daughter St Pancras Middlesex
Elizabeth Annie Armstrong abt 1810 Deal, Kent, England Wife St Pancras Middlesex
Jessie Fearon Armstrong b 26 March 1845 Camberwell, Surrey, England Daughter St Pancras Middlesex
Thomas Armstrong abt 1805 Marylebone, Middlesex, England Head St Pancras Middlesex
Eleanor Gardner abt 1813 Deal, Kent, England Sister-in-law St Pancras Middlesex
Thomas is an "auditor & accountant", Eleanor Armstrong is "vocalist", Jessie, Catherine & Anne are "scholars". Eleanor Gardner is "housekeeper" as well as sister-in-law.
C71 Thomas 65, Elizabeth 60, Jessie 26, Anne 17, Edith granddaughter 5 at 60 Burlington Rd
C91 Elizabeth with Harriet C Bartlett 47 dtr both widows plus sister Jessie authoress, Annie E composer
Annie, composer. That's she.
And here's the story of Eleanor, who was not the least among Victorian Vocalists
ARMSTRONG, Eleanor (b Camberwell, 19 August 1839; d National Hospital, Queen Square, 10 February 1896)
A decidedly capable soprano, Eleanor Armstrong was appreciatively heard in the London and provincial concerts through the 1860s and the 1870s.
Miss Armstrong was born in Camberwell, the second daughter of London-born Thomas Armstrong, a collector for a gas company (and later an accountant and auditor in his own right), and his wife Elizabeth Ann née Gardner, who hailed from Deal in Kent. She was given her vocal training by Frank Mori, and appears to have made her first appearance on the concert stage at the age of 20 (27 November 1858) at the Crystal Palace, The Portuguese soprano Maria de Villar shared the vocal duties for the occasion, and gave ‘Robert, toi que j’aime’. Miss Armstrong stuck, more modestly, to ‘Deh vieni non tardar’ and her teacher’s song ‘The Syren’, and was gratified with approving notices (‘a sweet soprano and sings pleasingly’).
 |
| Frank Mori |
Ten days later, she encountered tougher competition, when she made her first appearance at St James’s Hall, alongside not only Miss de Villar but Georgina Weiss, Harriet Tennant, Georgina Stabbach and Charlotte Dolby, as well as Tennant, Weiss and Sims Reeves. She gave her ‘Syren Song’ again and the ‘very young aspirant’ ‘produced a favourable impression’.
Eleanor Armstrong was heard in a number of concerts during the 1859 season, and on 30 June the young vocalist mounted her first own concert at the Hanover Square Rooms. Isabella Amadei, the Belgian tenor Edmond Depret, Allan Irving, Harriet Henrie and Paul Standish were her guests, and her own contribution won her sterling notices. ‘A young singer of much promise’ ‘decided ability’ ‘Her voice is a true soprano, not very strong but clear and telling. Her accomplishment of ‘Batti, Batti’ was more than creditable and well deserved the encore it obtained’. Eleanor’s other items included Balfe’s ‘The Power of Love’ and Miss Augusta Cowell’s ‘The Lonely Harp’. For the next fifteen seasons, Miss Eleanor Armstrong’s Concert would be a fixture of the concert calendar.
In 1860 (16 May) Laura Baxter, W H Cummings and Herr Eibenschütz of Pesth, shared the bill and Eleanor delivered ‘Non temer’, ‘Flow on, o silver Rhine’ and duetted ‘Dolce conforto’ with Laura Baxter, in 1861 (7 May) George Perren and Miss Baxter shared the vocal duties and in 1862 (9 January, Westbourne Hall) Miss Armstrong produced a larger bill including Louisa Vinning, Miss Poole, Annie Lascelles, Matilda Bradshaw and John Morgan. Her own contribution ranged from an aria from Roberto Devereux and ‘Parigi o cara’ with Morgan to ’Kathleen Mavourneen’ and ‘A thousand miles from thee’. On 1 July she mounted a second concert at the Hanover Square Rooms with Perren, Suchet Champion, de Fontanier and Miss Lascelles.
In those same years, she was seen in various personal concerts (Miss Baxter, Oberthur, Henry Morley, Phineas E van Noorden, J Theodore Petters &c) and she also returned on a number of occasions to the Crystal Palace concerts, giving pieces such as the Dinorah Shadow song, ‘Where art thou wandering, little child?’, ‘Bel raggio’, ‘Ah fors’è lui’, ‘L’amor suo’ ‘The beating of my own heart’ and ‘Flow on, o silver Rhine’ to consistent praise: ‘one of the most promising beginners we have heard in a long time’, ‘a high clear soprano with a good deal of natural flexibility’, a highly promising singer’ ‘exhibited such good taste and skill and showed such a nice voice withal that the audience were delighted’.
I notice her, in 1862, singing the title role in The May Queen in one concert and taking the soprano part in The Messiah at Windsor (‘she is a great favourite in Windsor’). By and large, however, she limited herself to concert appearances, and if most of these were in the less showy and less Italianate performances of the year, I do spot her in one of Howard Glover’s vast affairs, in 1863, singing his ‘We have wandered through the meadows’, duetting Norma with Emily Spiller and taking part in a quartet with Miss Spiller, Eleonora Wilkinson and Emily Soldene. In 1863 she gave a matinée musicale at Conway Lodge with the Weisses, Miss Baxter and Thomas Dyson and, in 1864, another Hanover Square concert (11 June) in which Perren, J G Patey and Annie Lascelles featured, This time Eleanor gave ‘Non credea mirarti’, ‘Jungfrau Maria’, ‘The Merry Flowergirl’ and ‘I Naviganti’, and the soloists joined in the Rigoletto quartet. She brought out her Sonnambula aria again for her 1865 concert (23 May, ‘a charming voice and a highly commendable style’) and also ventured Ganz’s celebrated ‘Nightingale’s Trill’ with ‘marked success’. In 1866 (23 May) it was ‘Qui la voce’, ‘The Days That are no More’ and the Trill.
Miss Eleanor Armstrong was tackling the warhorses of the coloratura soprano repertoire with consistent success, but she also introduced a number of less known pieces including new songs by Charles Fowler, by Francesco Berger (‘Song for Twilight’), by Henry Morley (O, Sister Sing the Song I Love’), Walstein (‘We will not forget thee’) and the ‘Deep in my soul’ composed by Catherine Armstrong. Catherine (1847-1898) was Eleanor’s youngest sister – of the other Armstrong girls, Jessie, so the censi tell us, became an ‘authoress’ and Annie a ‘composer’ -- and she would have a modest career as a vocalist and a composer of songs. Annie wrote 'gel's stories' and set bits of Hans Andersen, Dickens et al, as well as having a crack (post-Sullivan) at 'A Lost Chord'.
In between her London engagements, and her teaching, Eleanor Armstrong regularly visited other parts of the country, performing on a number of occasions in Edinburgh and over an extended period in 1870-1 as vocalist with Charles Halle and Mme Norman-Neruda in their concerts throughout the country. Her annual concert remained, however, her principal shop window. In 1867 (22 June) she held it at the Marchioness of Downshire’s home (‘Robert, toi que j’aime’, ‘Quanto amore’ ‘The Lover and the Bird’, ‘Deep in my soul’, ‘Legères hirondelles with Jules Lefort), in 1868 (24 June) at the Beethoven Rooms (‘Jours de mon enfance’, ‘Quanto amore’, Catherine’s ‘Vieni’), in 1869 at the Hanover Square Rooms (‘a very pleasant sympathetic voice, wanting perhaps in power but strong enough for the ordinary concert room’) with a bill including the Pateys, Elena Angele, Edith Wynne, Mme Liebhart, Carl Stepan, Edwin Ransford and Harley Vinning. In 1870 (24 June) Mathilde Enequist, Megan Watts and Lefort were among the performers, and in 1871 (20 June), Anna Drasdil and Trelawny Cobham joined other old friends in a concert in which Benedict’s The Legend of Saint Cecilia was featured. ‘One of our most agreeable young vocalists’, nodded the music press after her performances of ‘She wandered down the mountainside’, ‘La fioraja’ and some concerted music. In 1872 (5 July) she mounted a fashionable bill of Drasdil, Lefort, Caravoglia and Cobham for a matinée musicale at 69 Eaton Square.
The 1873 concert (27 May, St George’s Hall) was the occasion for Catherine to make her first appearance as a professional vocalist, on an almost identical bill, and the next year (20 June, Hanover Square Rooms) she again appeared. In 1876 (27 June), the concert was announced as being given by the two sisters together. The two hosted the annual event again in 1878 and 1879, at 6 Cromwell Houses.
Eleanor Armstrong had now been before the public as a singer for twenty years, performing ‘with excellent effect’ and always to pleased notices for both her voice and her style. If her career had not been as colourful and glamorous as some, and she had, of course, never attempted the stage, she had nevertheless been a well-liked presence in the British musical world for two full decades. Now, however – for she was not the ‘Mademoiselle Elena [actually, Helen] Armstrong’ who toured briefly with the Campobello opera co in 1881 -- she faded from the scene, leaving Catherine to continue just a little longer in the field where she had shone.
She spent her latter years housekeeping for her brother, Charles, at 23 Ipplepin Road, South Tottenham, and died in Holborn’s National Hospital in 1896, recordedly of the rare condition of a sarcoma of the sphenoid bone. The trade press failed to notice the occasion.
But I bought her death certificate. As well as this beautiful piece of Victorian sheet music.
1 comment:
Excellent stuff, just shows where all this interest can lead.
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