Charles Dibdin (1745–1814)

Paul F. Rice, Memorial University of Newfoundland
January 2024

Born in Southampton, Charles Dibdin was likely the twelfth of fourteen children. He was baptised privately, possibly because he had not been expected to live. A formal baptism was held on March 26, 1745, at Holyrood Church, Southampton. Dibdin records that his father, Thomas, was “a silversmith, and a man of considerable credit at that time. … He was remarkable for companionable qualities, and a very leading man at elections” (The Professional Life of Mr. Dibdin, 4 vols. London, 1803, 1: 15). When the father died unexpectedly, the family moved to Winchester. There, Charles won a position in the choir of Winchester Cathedral. The young singer received a good education in that city, although not at Winchester College as he later recorded in his Professional Life. By the time that he was sixteen years of age, Dibdin was living in London and acting as sub-organist at Saint Bride’s, Fleet Street. He worked in the music establishment of John Johnson (fl. 1740–ca. 1762), but was disappointed by his career prospects there because Johnson gave him little to do besides tuning harpsichords.

Although he had never attended the theatre or heard an opera, the young Dibdin took the advice of Richard Berenger (d. 1782) to look to the theatre for his future. This was the great musical awakening of Dibdin’s life: “I have no power of expression that can give the faintest idea of what I felt when I heard the first crash of an overture. What an immense distinction between this electrical power and the clerical strumming I had been accustomed to in the country! I was music mad; but what astonished me most was that, merely from hearing how the parts were combined and worked together in the band, I completely learnt the secret of composition” (Professional Life, 1: 20). Thus, Dibdin claimed to be a self-taught composer. By 1760, he had won a position in the chorus of the Covent Garden theatre. In 1762, he performed in Richmond in the summer months and then published some of his own songs the following year. He was soon performing his own songs at the Vauxhall summer concerts and, in 1764, his all-sung afterpiece, the Shepherd’s Artifice, was performed at Covent Garden. Not only had Dibdin written the text and the music, he also performed the role of Strephon. This was an auspicious start to Dibdin’s career as a performer, composer, and lyricist.

Dibdin quickly became an important singing actor for the Covent Garden theatre, in addition to his talents as a lyricist and composer. In 1765, Dibdin performed in Samuel Arnold’s The Maid of the Mill (set to a libretto by Isaac Bickerstaffe, 1733–after 1808), thus initiating a rewarding artistic relationship between Bickerstaffe and Dibdin. Not only did Dibdin perform leading roles in Bickerstaff’s Love in the City (1767) and Lionel and Clarissa (1768), he also composed substantial portions of their respective scores. Dibdin fell foul of George Colman (1732–94), the new patentee of Covent Garden theatre at the end of that season. Bickerstaff supported Dibdin and both men were quickly engaged by David Garrick (1717–79) at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. There, they created The Padlock (1768), an opera of enduring popularity. Eventually, Dibdin took over the singing role of the West-Indian servant Mungo, and enjoyed an enduring success.[1] Bickerstaffe and Dibdin created works for other locations, including the comic serenata The Ephesian Matron (1769)[2] for the Ranelagh Gardens. Unfortunately, their association ended in May 1772 when Bickerstaffe fled to France, rather than face charges of sodomy. Throughout this time, Dibdin’s fame grew and he was frequently heard in the concerts of the London Pleasure Gardens and the Little Theatre in the Haymarket during the summer months. The relationship with Garrick deteriorated, however, because of financial issues, but Dibdin’s vanity was likely a contributing factor. Referring to Garrick’s Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769, Dibdin writes that “I venture to say that had it not been for my music the audience would have shewn much more dissatisfaction. They were not in very good humour as it was” (The Musical Tour of Mr. Dibdin, 1788, 290).

The relationship with Garrick continued to deteriorate and Dibdin was dismissed from Drury Lane at the end of the 1775 season. Seriously in debt, Dibdin fled to France where he learned French and translated and adapted French stage works for use on English stages. These works were sent back to Samuel Arnold (1740–1802) in London who had agreed to market them. When France entered into the American War of Independence, Dibdin was forced to return to England in June 1778. He was taken on by Thomas Harris (1738–1820) at the Covent Garden theatre as a house composer at £10 per week. Although some of his efforts were successful, the arrangement came to an end in 1782. Dibdin was then convinced to enter into a consortium that built a theatre in Surrey called the Royal Circus, a structure similar to Philip Astley’s hippodrome in London. Charles Hughes (1746/7–97) was in charge of the equestrian entertainments, Joseph Grimaldi (1778–1837) the pantomimes, and Dibdin was in charge of the musical offerings. Although the enterprise was successful initially, the touchy Dibdin felt that he was undermined by his partners. He created a musical programme of considerable breadth and engaged some 60 children to dance, act, and sing in the Royal Circus entertainments. Dibdin writes: “Thus had I formed a seminary to mature actors and actresses for the theatre; ... the theatres are, at this moment, indebted to my exertions, during that short time, for the talents of many of their performers ... are deservedly favourites” (Professional Life, 1803, 2:113). Dibdin’s ambitions exceeded the ability of the theatre to provide the children with appropriate board and training. The Royal Circus was closed by the Surrey magistrates in 1784, and Dibdin was in the King’s Bench debtors’ prison by February of that same year.

The next few years were difficult for Dibdin and his family. A plan to move to India in 1788 came to naught. The family set sail that autumn but only got as far as Dunkirk when bad weather forced the ship back to Torbay. Dibdin decided that he disliked sailing and he returned to London. It was at this point that he decided that he would embark on a different type of career as a solo entertainer, performing his own songs. In these “table entertainments,” Dibdin recited specially written introductions to his songs and then sang them to his own accompaniment. He caused a special keyboard instrument to be constructed called a Polyharmonicon that combined a fortepiano and organ, along with foot pedals that triggered various percussion effects. These performances eventually became so popular and financially successful that, in 1796, he erected the 500-seat New Sans Souci Theatre in Leicester Square. Dibdin must have realized early on that, for this kind of entertainment to be successful, he would be selling himself as much as his music. The result was the construction of a public persona of great affability. John O’Keeffe writes that Dibdin would run on stage “sprightly and with nearly a laughing face, like a friend who enters hastily to impart to you some good news ... a few lines of speaking happily introduced his admirable songs full of wit and character, and his peculiar mode of singing them surpassed all I had ever heard” (Recollections of the Life of John O’Keeffe, 1826, 2: 322–23).

Dibdin’s artistic output was prodigious. He produced 21 “table entertainments,” each with about 30 songs.[3] These songs were usually multi-verse ballads with comic or cynical texts. An example of the latter would be his “No good without an exception” from Castles in the Air (1793). Each of the four verses in this strophic setting mentions some of the good things in life (wines, wives, the law, fame, friends, etc.), but ends with cynical exceptions (wives are unfaithful, friends want money, fame is useless in the grave, etc.). The exact number of his songs has not been calculated, but it is assumed to have been as many as one thousand. Given that these were set to his own lyrics, Dibdin’s influence on popular culture was strong. His naval and patriotic songs were so appreciated that he was given a government pension in 1803 so that he could abandon touring the provinces and concentrate on patriotic works.

Dibdin’s musical style changed little over the years, with rhythmically active melodies supported by simple harmonies revolving around three chords. Modulations to the dominant key were common in the central sections of his songs, but modulations to more distant keys or making use of chromatic harmonies were rare. In this, he shared similarities with the popular style of James Hook (1746–1827). For the theatres, Dibdin created or contributed to over thirty dramatic pieces, with some such as The Waterman (1774) remaining in the active repertory well into the next century.

As a literary author, Dibdin wrote a Musical Tour through England (1788) and Observations on a Tour through England and Scotland (1803). His Professional Life of Mr. Dibdin was published in four volumes in 1803. An enlarged edition of six volumes was begun in 1809, but never completed. In 1795, he published a Complete History of the British Stage in five volumes. These publications are highly biased and sometimes factually incorrect, but they reveal much about the prejudices of the era. Not content with such large-scale undertakings, Dibdin also wrote four novels: The Devil (1785), Hannah Hewit or the Female Crusoe (1792), The Younger Brother (1793), and Henry Hooka (1806). Carl Thompson writes that Hannah Hewit is a remarkable depiction of a “prodigy of inventiveness” written in a “highly fanciful and whimsical” style. The novel had considerable traction and Thompson records that “Dibdin’s creation of a female Crusoe character seems to have resonated in Britain in the 1790s, an era of intense feminist and anti-feminist debates” (“The Grosvenor Shipwreck and the Figure of the Female Crusoe ... ,” English Studies in Africa, 51.2 (2008), 11).

Dibdin was a complex and often touchy individual. He was temperamentally unsuited for a life in the theatre, but was fortunate to have found an outlet for his many talents in his solo performances. Sadly, his personal life was as fraught as his professional one. He is believed to have married early but, if true, he must have abandoned his first wife when he began a relationship with a chorus singer at the Covent Garden theatre by the name of Harriett Pitt (1748–1814) who performed under the name of Mrs. Davenett. With Harriet, he had two sons and a daughter. Dibdin subsequently abandoned this family and eventually married Anne Maria Wylde (1757–1835) with whom he had another daughter. He was struck with a paralytic illness in 1813 from which he never recovered. At his death on July 25, 1814, he was survived by his wife Anne, their daughter, and the surviving children from his relationship with Harriet Pitt.