Introduction

Thomas Luigi Trowell was born in Birmingham, UK, in August 1859. At the age of twenty he found a position playing in the band at the Tynemouth Aquarium near Newcastle, but when the venue closed after less than a year, he chose to follow his fiancée, Kate Wheeler, to New Zealand.

During the 1880s Thomas organised balls and dances in Taranaki Street, Wellington, and played the viola in local concerts. He performed under conductor Robert Parker – who was later to become KM’s piano teacher – for the Wellington Orchestral Society from 1883. In 1886 Thomas accepted a teaching post at Saint Patrick’s College, beginning a long professional association with the Wellington school that helped educate his twin sons.

Thomas continued to play for the Wellington Orchestral Society but transferred from viola to clarinet in 1892. His musical versatility was notable: he taught both violin and cello and conducted a variety of local orchestras and bands. A broad range of styles was required, including music for trapeze exhibitions, wrestling and sword-fighting, as well as for Sunday worship.

The family eventually moved to 18 Buller Street, Wellington, where KM later attended rehearsals and music lessons. Tragically, the eldest son, Lindley, died on 28 July 1894, only weeks before the Second New Zealand Musical Festival – at which Thomas performed – opened at the nearby opera house. Thomas toured the North Island with the Bland Holt Opera Company in the summer of 1895–6; played for the Industrial Exhibition in November 1896; and performed – as a first violinist – for the Wellington Orchestral Society’s concert in April of the same year. By this time his twin sons, Garnet and Tom, were involved in these concerts, and much of their father’s energy was transferred to their musical education.

After the twins left for Europe in 1903 to further their musical education, Thomas continued briefly at Saint Patrick’s College before dedicating himself to orchestral and opera conducting, playing and touring in New Zealand and Australia. Cello lessons and concerts with KM included an ‘At Home’, celebrating the Beauchamp family’s move to Fitzherbert Terrace in May 1907. KM’s subsequent letters to Thomas – who was back in England by the end of the year – provide glimpses of the powerful hold that music still had over KM: ‘the greatest joy I can imagine is to share a programme with you at a London concert’ (below, p. 708).