Author: Arnold, Samuel James
Biography:
ARNOLD, Samuel James (1774-1852: ODNB)
He was the eldest of four children born to Samuel Arnold, composer, and his wife Mary Ann Napier. He was born in London on 5 Dec. 1774 and baptised on 28 Dec. at St. Mary in Marylebone. He studied at King’s School, Canterbury, before training as an artist (1782-85) specialising first in portraits and then in panoramas. He exhibited his paintings at the Royal Academy 1800-08. At the Haymarket theatre in 1794 he produced a musical drama, Auld Robin Gray, based on the ballad by Lady Anne Barnard (q.v.); this was followed in 1795 by Who Pays the Reckoning. In 1796 he published his only novel, The Creole, or, Haunted Island. In 1803 he married Matilda Caroline Pye, daughter of Henry Pye (q.v.); they had two sons and one daughter. Over a long career, Arnold wrote many plays; music for some of them was composed by his father. He also collaborated with Henry Pye in writing a comedy, A Prior Claim (1805). He was instrumental in the conversion of the Lyceum in the Strand to the English Opera House and, when the new Drury Lane theatre opened in 1812 after a fire, he was appointed manager. His tenure as manager was marked by controversy and by 1818 the company was ruined. Arnold had the English Opera House rebuilt at great expense but in 1830 it too suffered a fire and he never recovered from the loss. By the time of the 1851 Census he and Matilda Caroline were living on Bridge Street in Walton-Upon-Thames, Surrey, and he died there on 16 Aug. 1852. He was buried at St. Mary’s Church in Walton-Upon-Thames on 23 Aug. 1852. (ODNB 27 June 2022; ancestry.co.uk 27 June 2022)