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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 October 2020
In March 1799 John White was 20 years old and already an experienced professional violinist and cellist. He kept a detailed account book between March 1799 and March 1800 that provides much information about the economic and professional life of a young musician at the very end of the eighteenth century. White had showed early musical promise, and when he was 15 he attracted the patronage of the future Lord Harewood, who enabled him to take lessons from leading musical figures and appointed him as his director of music. White lived at Harewood House, near Leeds, but he spent some months of the London season each year with the Harewood family in their house in Hanover Square. The accounts show how White earned money in London by playing at private and public concerts and deputising at almost every place of musical entertainment in the capital. In Yorkshire he led orchestras in concerts and oratorio performances, took on pupils and visited Scarborough. White’s meticulous lists of his income and expenditure, from an expensive violin, a harp and harp lessons to silk stockings, waistcoats and hair ribbon, paint a fascinating picture of a young man making his way in the musical profession.
1 Robert, Demaine, ‘Mr White of Leeds’, Music in the British Provinces 1690–1914, ed. Rachel, Cowgill and Peter, Holman (Aldershot, 2007), 183–93Google Scholar.
2 Referred to by White in a short speech at the convivial supper after the society’s annual concert in 1830 (Yorkshire Gazette, 8 May 1830).
3 Letter from Rev T. J. Wakefield to John Sainsbury, based on information given to him by White, which was used for the biographical entry on White in Sainsbury’s Dictionary of Musicians (1824) GB- Ge: Ms R.d.88/196, f. 2.
4 White informed Rev Wakefield that when he was appointed in 1794, he was ‘considered the only person in the county, able to undertake the situation’ (Wakefield letter, 2) If White remembered the date correctly, he must have been engaged by Edward Lascelles before he inherited the estate and fortune of his cousin Edwin Lascelles, the first Lord Harewood, upon the man’s death on 25 January 1795. Edward Lascelles did not receive the revived title of Lord Harewood until June 1796.
5 John James Ashley (1771–1815) was an organist, pianist and composer, and was also a noted singing teacher. He was one of the four musical sons of the bassoonist and conductor John Ashley.
6 A leading cellist in London, J. A. Dahmen also gave concerts in the Leeds area and in September 1795 he was offering lessons in Leeds until his return to London three months later (Leeds Intelligencer, 7 September 1795). He was also the last professional viola da gamba player in Britain until modern times. See Peter Holman, Life after Death: The Viola da Gamba in Britain from Purcell to Dolmetsch (Woodbridge, 2010), 283–7. The authors are grateful to Professor Holman for answering our queries about Dahmen, and for assistance with other points.
7 Wakefield letter, 2.
8 The finances of the Harewood household appear to be still working according to the old calendar, with the New Year beginning in late March.
9 His income totals are accurate, but there are two mistakes in the expenditure totals, leading to a final total nine shillings more than it should have been.
10 The payment of many professionals in guineas rather than pounds survived until the decimalization of British currency in 1971.
11 Leeds Intelligencer, 17 October 1796.
12 Leeds Intelligencer, 22, 29 October 1798. White’s cello teacher, Johan Dahmen, was the principal cellist and played a concerto.
13 Betty, Matthews, compiler, The Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain List of Members, 1738–1984 (London, 1985), 142, 73.Google Scholar
14 Matthews, Royal Society of Musicians, 212.
15 True Briton, 22 June 1799.
16 He bought three pairs for 18s on 1 May and one pair for 5s on 4 May.
17 Dr Roz Southey of Newcastle University has told us that the firm of Thomas Bewick and Ralph Beilby produced such cards for musicians in the north of England in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
18 Joseph, Doane, A Musical Directory for the Year 1794 (London, [1794]), 57 Google Scholar. The cellist disappears from the Concerts of Ancient Music after 1797, but the violinists Mr Schram (i.e. S. Schram) and Mr M. Schram continued to perform there. White’s ‘Mr Schram’ is likely to be either the cellist or the older of the two violinists. Charles Schram is given in the rate books for the address of the cellist given in Doane until 1831, and in an 1802 directory ‘Christopher Schram, esq.’ is given as living there.
19 Matthews, Royal Society of Musicians, 89.
20 In the 1820s he had about 150 regular pupils each year (Wakefield letter, 4). White taught at least one professional singer, for in 1830 the leading singer at the Leeds Theatre, Miss Atkinson, was described as ‘a pupil of Mr White’ (Yorkshire Gazette, 19 June 1830). It was common for successful music teachers to have large numbers of pupils. Rayner Taylor, who was organist at Chelmsford, Essex from 1772 to 1784, later remembered that he had there an ‘immense round of teaching, both at the principal academies, and in private families’ ( Olive, Baldwin and Thelma, Wilson, ‘Rayner Taylor (1747–1825), Chelmsford’s first organist’, Transactions of the Essex Society for Archaeology and History, 34 (2004), 208-215)Google Scholar.
21 Between 4 April and 31 May he received a total of £3 6s from Miss Weston and a further £2 from Mr Weston ‘for lessons’ on 28 June.
22 According to his memorial tablet, given in Demaine, ‘Mr White of Leeds’, 183.
23 Charles, Burney, A General History of Music, iv (London, 1789), 582 Google Scholar.
24 Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 26 May 1799; Sun, 11 July 1799.
25 True Briton, 27 April 1799.
26 Robert Lindley was London’s principal cellist from the mid 1790s. His partnership with Dragonetti in the continuo group at the Italian Opera was particularly noteworthy.
27 Morning Chronicle, 26 April 1799.
28 Oracle and Daily Advertiser, 25 April 1799.
29 Wakefield letter, 2-3.
30 Morning Herald, 22 April 1799.
31 Matthews, Royal Society of Musicians, 74, 64.
32 He had been dancing master there since 1786 according to Highfill, Philip H. et al., eds., Biographical Dictionary of Actors, ii (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1973), 370 Google Scholar.
33 John, Sainsbury, A Dictionary of Musicians from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time (London, 1824), i, 117Google Scholar.
34 True Briton, 22 May 1799.
35 Drury Lane accounts quoted in Highfill, Biographical Dictionary of Actors, xvi (1993), 375.
36 Matthews, Royal Society of Musicians, 94.
37 Matthews, Royal Society of Musicians, 97.
38 Matthews, Royal Society of Musicians, 160.
39 Morning Chronicle, 7 and 9 May 1799.
40 Times, 9 May 1799. The Boyce anthem was ‘Lord, thou has been our refuge’. The programme was virtually unchanged from 1775 to 1825. See Pearce, E. H., The Sons of the Clergy 1655-1904 (London, 1904)Google Scholar.
41 Matthews, Royal Society of Musicians, 14.
42 Simon, McVeigh, Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn (Cambridge, 1993), 194 Google Scholar.
43 Sainsbury, Dictionary of Musicians, ii, 440.
44 On 2 January 1800 White paid 4s 6d for carriage of ‘Gen. Ashleys Box’.
45 David, Coke and Alan, Borg, Vauxhall Gardens: a History (New Haven and London, 2011), 181 Google Scholar. Jonathan Tyers was the proprietor of Vauxhall Gardens from 1729 until his death in 1767.
46 Leeds Intelligencer, 5 August 1799.
47 Leeds Intelligencer, 12, 19, 26 August; 2 September 1799.
48 Rachel Cowgill, ‘The most musical spot for its size in the kingdom: music in Georgian Halifax’, Early Music, 28/4 (2000), 557-75. Two Harmonic Society programmes from 1794 are given on page 565.
49 Leeds Intelligencer, 17 and 24 June 1799.
50 James, Schofield, The Scarborough Guide (2nd edn., Hull, 1796)Google Scholar.
51 William, Saunders, A Treatise on … some of the most Celebrated Mineral Waters (London, 1800), 290 Google Scholar.
52 Mary, Mauchline, Harewood House (rev. 2nd edn., Ashbourne, Derbyshire, 1992), 72-76.Google Scholar
53 The portrait was painted for Edwin Lascelles in 1764-6. Mrs Hale was the sister-in-law of White’s employer. See Nicholas, Penny, ed., Reynolds (London, 1986), 228-30Google Scholar. Euphrosyne also features memorably in Thomas Arne’s Comus, which was premiered in 1738 and remained popular throughout the century.
54 Demaine, ‘Mr White of Leeds’, 187.
55 McVeigh, Concert Life in London, 197.