Author: Dibdin, Thomas John
Biography:
DIBDIN, Thomas John (1771-1841: ODNB)
pseudonym T. Merchant
He was the youngest of three children born to Charles Dibdin (q.v.) and an actor, Harriet Pitt (1748-1814). (Charles Dibdin, Jr., q.v., was his elder brother.) He was born in Bloomsbury, London, on 21 Mar. 1771 and baptised on 27 Apr. at St. George’s, Bloomsbury. Although his parents were not married to each other, his mother’s name is given as Harriotte Elizabeth Dibdin in the baptismal record. He was educated at St. Paul’s Cathedral choir school, and at boarding schools in Wandsworth and in Barnard’s Castle, Durham, before being apprenticed when he was fourteen to William Rawlins, an eminent London upholsterer. In 1789 Dibdin broke his apprenticeship and fled to the provinces where he performed with various theatre companies, worked as a scene painter, and became involved in management. His first play, Sunshine After Rain, was performed in Manchester in 1793 and later published under his stage name of T. Merchant as The Mad Guardian with the addition of verse and prose pieces. As “Thomas Pitt” on 23 May 1793 he married an actor, Ann Hillier, at Manchester Cathedral. They moved to Carmarthen, Wales, before returning to London in 1795 where the first of their many children, Maria Anne Dibdin, was born on 20 Nov. 1795. In London Dibdin and Ann worked for the major theatres—Sadler’s Wells, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, and the Surrey—but he gradually shifted from acting to management and writing. Dibdin wrote numerous plays and songs including adaptations of novels by Walter Scott (q.v.). It was his connection with the Surrey theatre that caused his financial ruin in 1822 and prompted his first letters to the RLF in 1824; the fund awarded him a total of £195 over fourteen years. Ann died on 29 Aug. 1828 and he married Catherine Court on 9 Apr. 1829; they had three children. He published The Last Lays of the Three Dibdins by subscription in 1833 and dedicated it to Edward Bulwer Lytton (q.v.) for his advocacy of reform of copyright laws. His final publication was Songs, Naval and National, of the Late Charles Dibdin, With a Memoir (1841). Dibdin died at home in Knightsbridge on 16 Sept. 1841 and was buried at St. James’s, Pentonville. His widow, Catherine, received £30 on her application to the RLF. (ODNB 15 July 2024; ancestry.co.uk 15 July 2024; RLF file 503) SR
Other Names:
- Thomas Dibdin
- T. Dibdin