Skip to main content

Author: Wade, Joseph Augustine

Biography:

WADE, Joseph Augustine (1800/1-45: ODNB)

His burial record and death certificate give his age-at-death as 44 although it is quite possible he was born earlier. He is thought to have been born in Dublin, the son of William Wade, a dairyman. There has been some confusion about his names: he sometimes used "John" and his death certificate records "Ward". His claims to have attended Trinity College Dublin, to have been a junior clerk in the Irish Record Office, and to have studied at the Irish College of Surgeons, are all without corroborating documentary evidence. There is also no record of his musical training and he may have been self-taught. He appears to have married Bridget Teresa Kelly, of Garnaville, Athlone, in 1816 or slightly later (throwing doubt on the 1801 birth), possibly in Dublin, but seems to have left her behind when he appeared in London in 1821. His oratorio The Prophecy (1824) and opera The Two Houses of Granada (1826) were popular; later operas, The Convent Belles (1833) and The Pupil of da Vinci (1839), less so. His songs, "I’ve wandered in dreams" and "Meet me by the moonlight alone" caught the lingering Byronic mood and were widely performed. In 1833 he was declared bankrupt, applied to the RLF the following year and was awarded £15. He claimed only one literary work, The Dwelling of Fancy (1831), which consisted of a Spenserian lead poem and a few minor pieces. He also noted that “thousands of essays & contributions to periodicals on different subjects have been printed in prose and verse but few of them are known as mine and probably never will be” (RLF).  His final years were characterised by frantic hack-work for musical publishers (some of it of high quality and original), alcoholism, and opium addiction. The DIB and ODNB incorrectly describe his second wife as “common law.” She was Emma Jenner (formerly Johnson), a widow with two children, who married him at St. James’s Clerkenwell on 27 Jul. 1843. She described the three months prior to his death when his mind had been “so wandering, and unsettled that he could make no connected communications that could be relied upon” (RLF). The obituary in the GM was more explicit: “mental derangement, brought on by incessant study, and by habits of feelings which made the destructive resource to opium but too acceptable.” He died on 15 Jul. 1845 at his lodgings, 340 Strand, and was buried at Nunhead on 22 Jul. 1845, with his age given as 44. His widow applied to the RLF to cover burial expenses and was awarded £20. An appeal was also made on her behalf to which several leading music publishers and stationers subscribed. (ODNB 25 Jun. 2021; DIB; New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians [2004] 5: 26; RLF 1/777; Musical World 14 Aug. 1845, 385-386 and 16 Oct. 1845, 501; "A Case of Extreme Distress,"Morning Post 24 Jul. 1845; GM Sept. 1845, 321; J. Richardson, Recollections [1855] 1: 231-8) AA

 

Other Names:

  • J. Augustine Wade
 

Books written (1):