Kurt of Gerolstein: Cartesians: Jack? Clarence? Charlie? A chameleon tenor

I've been writing the name of Mr Leumane (light tenor) for some forty years. But he has never really impinged on the main story I was telling, so I didn't ever really investigate him. Leumane? Should be fairly easy to winkle out. Wrong.

Because, of course, his name wasn't Leumane at all. And his first name wasn't either Clarence or Charles/'Charlie', although he used both at times. And was actually known at some stage as 'Jack'. Which wasn't his true name, either.

But I winkled and I winkled and the oyster finally cracked open. And divulged ... not at all what I'd expected.

Once upon a time, there was a Northumberland brewer named William Catcheside, who fathered a number of children, amongst whom, 7 December 1815 in Wylam Mills, a son named Robert. Robert went into the grocery trade, latterly specialising in tea dealing. I see him in Denton Chase, Newcastle, in 1841, with two brothers and .. a sister? a wife? I can find no record, but it seems that this Mary was his wife. Of some sort. She seemingly gave birth to a son, in 1844, who was christened Matthew Emmanuel Catcheside, and died in 1846. Father and son can be seen together in 1851 in Newcastle. Robert remarried that same year, and carried on grocering and also fathering little Catchesides ...

But it is Matthew Emmanuel in whom I am interested. He took up his father's profession and after an apprenticeship in London, went to work as a tea dealer. For twenty years, he dealt in tea. And then, in 1881, he became 'Mr Leumane' and went on the stage. I have no idea whence came the monniker, but he had been using it for over a decade ... (PS Allister Hardiman has just pointed out that is it 'Emanuel' spelled backwardsish!)

The Catcheside family grave. No Matthew.

And where had he been hiding that tenor voice all these years. Amid the groceries?

His first job seems to have been (as Jack Leumane) in a supporting role in Solomon's Claude Duval, after which he joined the ranks of D'Oyly Carte's touring company playing the tenor leads through to 1882. Over the following years he played with the Carl Rosa company (Florestein in The Bohemian Girl, Remendado in Carmen, Colomba), in Solomon's Polly (the comic role of Private Mangel), with Emily Soldene in Chilpéric, as Lancelot in Dr D before crossing to America to take the tenor role with William Carleton's company (Nanki Poo, Nanon) and in later 1886 appearing with the so-called American Opera Co. I see him as Tavannes in Les Huguenots, while William Candidus starred as Raoul.

In 1887, he was back in Newcastle briefly, but headed soon to Australia ... and there he was to stay, singing ('the famous tenor from the Carl Rosa company'!), over the next 16 or so years, the gamut of tenor roles in the works of the comic opera and musical comedy repertoire of the time (Princess Ida, The Mikado, Patience, HMS Pinafore, Iolanthe, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers, La Mascotte, Dorothy, Erminie, The Old Guard, Olivette, In Town, A Gaiety Girl, The Serenade et al),

with the occasional venture into opera with George Musgrove (Ruiz in Il Trovatore, Walther in Tannhäuser, Laertes in Mignon, Remendado in Carmen), and most memorably as Faust in that production of Faust which saw the death of poor 'Federici'.

He also ventured into management, in 1893-4, but with fatal results, and authored a number of libretti (including a 1903 version of The Polish Jew (mus: Ernest Truman)) and songwords. There survives a lyric 'The Lambton Worm' dated 1867 under his 'Leumane' signature, which shows us that he was active in musical fields well before renouncing his day job in tea.

Jack/Clarence/Charles withdrew from the theatre around 1904 and retired to Balhannah, South Australia, to concentrate on growing apples. He also, at the age of 62 (21 December 1907) gave up his bachelor life, and took to wife the rather younger Arabella Aldersley Manning. He gave his name as Charles Mather Leumane for the occasion. But ... he gave his father's name correctly, as Catcheside, and thus I was able to track back to Northumberland and find out truth of his origins and early life ..

Matthew Emmanuel Catcheside died at the age of 83 in South Australia (23 February 1928). Arabella outlived him by another 20 years ... (d 15 September 1949). There were no children.