Author: Busby, Thomas
Biography:
BUSBY, Thomas (1755-1838: ODNB)
His father is identified in some sources as Thomas Busby, coach-painter, and the ODNB names his mother as Ann. They may have been the Thomas Busby and Ann Martin who married in Mayfair, London, in 1752. Alternatively, his father may have been the Thomas Busby, coachman, who married Mary Marrick in St. Andrew’s, Holborn, in 1742. Busby was born on 26 Dec. 1755 and baptised at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, on 21 Jan. 1755. He had a fine singing voice and was apprenticed to Jonathan Battishill as a resident pupil. After his apprenticeship he began to earn a living writing music and from journalism. An Universal Dictionary of Music (1783-86) is attributed to him; he also assisted the editor of the Morning Post and reported on parliamentary debates for the London Courant. He became the organist at St. Mary’s, Newington, Surrey. On 15 June 1784 (not 1786 as given in the ODNB) he married Priscilla Angier (1760-1831); they had seven children including Charles Augustin Busby, father of C. S. B. Busby (q.v.). His The Divine Harmonist was published in 1792 and included works by him and the major ecclesiastical composers. In July 1800 he was admitted as a sizar to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he earned his Doctor of Music in 1801 for a composition based on a thanksgiving ode written by Mary Champion de Crespigny (q.v.). Busby’s other publications include A Complete Dictionary of Music (1801); a translation from Lucretius, The Nature of Things (1813; included in this database); A Grammar of Music (1818); and A General History of Music (1819). He died of “general decay” at the residence of one of his daughters at 4 Queen’s Row, Clerkenwell, London, on 28 May 1838. The biography of him printed in Public Characters (1803) was almost certainly written by Busby himself. (ODNB 21 Aug. 2023; ancestry.co.uk 21 Aug. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 21 Aug. 2023; Public Characters of 1802-1803 [1803]) SR