Author: Dibdin, Charles
Biography:
DIBDIN, Charles (1745-1814: ODNB)
Born in Southampton, son of Thomas and Sarah (Wesgarth) Dibdin, "probably" the twelfth of fourteen children (ODNB). His father was a successful silversmith but he died when Dibdin was young and the family moved to Winchester. Dibdin's musical career began when he became a chorister at Winchester Cathedral at the age of nine. He learnt to play the organ, moved to London to live with an older brother, and before he was twenty was performing his own songs at Vauxhall and Covent Garden. He composed over 900 songs, acted at the major theatres, quarrelled with the management, got into debt, and composed or collaborated in some of the most popular operas and comic operas of the day. (Later on, trying to supplement his income from the stage, he also wrote novels, a travelogue, and an autobiography.) With an actress, Harriet Pitt, he had two sons--one of them Charles Dibdin, Jr. (or "the younger," q.v.)--and a daughter; about 1775 he married Anna Maria Wylde of Portsea, and with her had at least one other child, their daughter Anne. In 1803, the Tory government enlisted his help in the war effort by commissioning patriotic songs, and rewarded him with a pension that he lost when the Whigs took over in 1806. Dibdin struggled all his life financially and ended in relative poverty. He was paralysed by an unspecified illness in 1813 and died in July 1814. (ODNB 3 Sept. 2018) HJ
Other Names:
- Dibdin
- Charles Dibdin, the elder
- C. Dibdin