I have a 'damaged' right hand. A legacy of my ancient stroke. Happily, I can still type -- though down to two fingers -- but I make lots of typos and various other 'erreurs de frappe'. Trying to undo accidental instructions to my computer is occasionally nightmarish. But occasionally, just occasionally, a mis-hit leads me somewhere interesting and useful. Like today.
As you know, I scan e-bay, quasi-daily, for fascinating historical fragments. Same keywords every day. Which is a bit dumb, because keywords on e-bay can be erroneous, misspelled or just plain fakes. I always check out the photos, programmes, music ...
Well, yesterday I mis-hit whatever my target was, and I came upon some super shops carrying C19th sheet music. All sorts. Lots of Waltzes, Quadrilles, Polkas and other dance arrangements, which ar'n't really my scene, but a decidedly interesting heap of songs of the Entertaiment and Music Hall varieties. Many, bearing credits which meant nothing to me. So, I put aside my D'Oyly Cartesians for the nonce, and have begun to investigate.
This one caught my eye, and it had quite a tale behind it.
Well, the Misses Bennett (who were apparently not Bennett at all) were the originals. But Mr Fairbairn became the 'front man' as time went on. Who was he?
James Angus FAIRBAIRN (b Kirknewton 31 May 1823; d Dorchester, Mass 1887) son of Thomas and Elizabeth, married Margaret née Waters, was a railway signalman in Perth. But a signalman with artistic yearnings. In 1850, his muse went public ..
And the following year he burst into public songs, assisting the 'Misses Bennett' in their Entertainment.
The Misses Bennett, billed as such (Miss E and Miss M H), had been seen in 1850 at the Glasgow City Hall concerts, sharing a bill with the Alban Crofts. Elizabeth was apparently Elizabeth ROBERTS. Miss? Mrs? Mary was allegedly her sister. But the whole lot of them told fibs, over the years, so that it is impossible to sort them out. However, I may have spotted them -- Elizabeth 35, Mary 30 -- as Bennett, born England, vocalist -- in the 1851 census for Anstruther Easter in Fife. Oh. With the 'Robertson' family ...
Elizabeth played piano, both girls sang, and originally not just Scottish songs. I see them duetting 'Deh conte'. Anyway, once Mr Fairbairn became attached to the act they seem, for all that they were not Scots, to have almost wholly Hibernian. suitably attired in overtly 'Highland' costume.
This is 1854, and it is seen that Angus has pushed himself to the front.
He had, after the birth of his fourth child, also begun an affair with the younger Miss Bennett. Whether they ever became legally married I have no idea, but Margaret 'late of Melrose Abbey and Bowhill' died at Dunnington, Yorks 13 January 1905 as Mrs Fairbairn.
Of course, in the fruition of time, Mary too bore children to her paramour. Usefully, she bore two daughters, who in the goodness of time were able to replace the 'sisters Bennett' in the Family Fairbairn act. But the Family Fairbairn operated now not in Britain, but in America. They seem to have emigrated in 1869, and I see them performing in Chicago in 1871. Angus, Mrs Roberts and Miss Katie Roberts. Who? Later, more predictably, it is Angus, Mary, Bessie (b 1857) and Polly (b 1858).
The act, alas, seems to have had a limited showing and a very limited success on the left hand side of the Atlantic, and a little para about Angus's death, in 1887 of intestinal cancer, tells us was a disgruntled man.
I am always fascinated by songs which are 'published by the composer'. Or 'for the composer'. It's like a vanity publication. One assumes that a regular publisher, or a recognised singer, didn't want it. Which is fair enough. I have self-published in my time. My reason was that my publishers wanted cuts, and I didn't. Not a reason likely to affect a song.
I've investigated the writer of several such pieces in the past, but today ...
First, I came on this.
A three-shilling song, with a nice cover, published by a well-known firm of piano dealers .. but Mr Bevan has paid for the publication. I wonder why. To get his name connected with that of the bashful Earl (who must surely be Shaftesbury, or maybe Stradbroke)?
Well, there are a few Sam Bevans around in the 'sixties. A farmer, a Reverend, servants ... but I'm plumping for Sam who was 'secretary to the English and foreign Library' at 15 Bond Street. I see that the Library had to purge its lists of 'impure literature of the 'Anonyma' type' in 1864. Sam seems to have shifted to the Douro Silver Lead Mining Co. Was it this Sam?
I don't see the song getting a professional outing, but it does turn up in amateur provincial concerts.
Now, to pay for one song to be published is OK. But what do we say of a man who does it over and over and over. This next one led me off on a really amusing chase ...
John d'Este, eh? Published by the composer. d'Este? It is, of course, a pseudonym, even though he decided to deed poll latterly. Dr John d'Este MA (Cantab). One of the gentleman's lesser peculiarities and peccadillos in a doggedly determined 'career' in music ...
John EASTES was born in Canterbury, Kent, 3 December 1823, the son of pawnbroker George Eastes and his wife, Elizabeth, and in his teens became a chorister at the local Cathedral. I maybe doing George a disservice, for there was one of the same name 'deputy organist of All Saints' Church Maidstone in the 40s ... anyway, I see 'Master Eastes' singing soprano in 1834, alongside Master Longhurst, and as late as 1837-8 ('an anthem from The Creation').
In 1843, he married Harriott Newport, billed himself as 'of the London concerts' and in 1845 had a son (John Newport Eastes, 26 August 1845) and was appointed a Lay Vicar at Trinity and King's College Cambridge. He would later say 'principal tenor'. He taught singing in Cambridge and turned out some music ('The Royal Naval Polka', 'The Arabian Polka') with picturesque titles. 'The Soldier's Bride' (1847) was self-published, so I imagine the Polkas were too.
He was now advertising 'pupil of Crivelli' and 'member of the University Choir' and was up to four children, and being 'of Sidney Sussex College', his servant girl committed suicide and he started giving a lecture 'Musical Sketches of Italy' at home and away .. 'artist, composer, poet and orator'. And the string of publications continue ('Only for thee, this heart will throb for thee', 'The Harp of Jacob', 'The Song of the British Navy') as 'An Excursion to Alexandria replaced his Italian lecture.
And in 1859 he graduated BA. 1864, it was MA. The doctorate seems to have come from his fertile imagination.
And aureoled with his newfound 'glory' he walked out on Hariott, and moved to London with his new companion, Carolie Crow. Or Caroline d'Este. For as he pompously announced in the press (and Cambridge took it for a hoax), his lofty Dutch ancestry gave him the right ...
In his new guise, he published a Practical Hints on Singing, churned out the music sheets ('easy but commonplace'), billed himself voluminously as 'MA Cantab, Lay Vicar of King's, Trinity and St John's College Cambridge, formerl of Canterbury Cathedral, Principal of the London College of Vocal Music' -- the College of WHAT? and in between times laid seven more children with some extraordinarily fancy names, on Miss Crow. By which time he was 'Doc Litt MA' ...
He died in 1891 ... leaving a bundle of descendants, and a larger bundle of sheet music of which I have found the following (in no particular order) ... nearly all 'published by the composer' ...
I don't know whether to feel sorry for Mr Eastes, or to laugh at his pretensions. Perhaps both.
To which may be added Beautiful Night (1872), a set of musical valentine (1 shilling for five), 'Give Honour to the Brave' (Oswald Allen 1881), 'When Tom Comes Home (G H Ryan 1881), 'Britons Rally Round Your Flag' (C W Rooke 1886) ..
PS I have yet to find a report of any of these being sung in public. But I shall keep looking.
And I am surely I shall shortly be adding another gent or two this list!
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