Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/232

Fitzwilliam Fitzwilliam's chief published compositions were: 1. ‘O Incomprehensible Creator,’ a cantata, 1850. 2. A ‘Te Deum’ for solo voices and chorus, 1852. 3. ‘A Set of Songs; the Poetry chiefly Selected,’ 1853. 4. ‘Songs for a Winter's Night; the Poetry chiefly Selected,’ 1855. 5. ‘Seaside Musings; Six Morceaux for the Pianoforte,’ 1855. 6. ‘Four-Part Song for Four Voices,’ 1855. 7. ‘Dramatic Songs for Soprano, Contralto, Tenor, and Bass Voices; Four Books and an Appendix,’ 1856. 8. ‘Three Sacred Songs for a Child,’ 1857. 9. ‘Songs of a Student.’ 10. ‘Miniature Lyrics.’ 11. ‘Christmas Eve, a Lyric Ode.’ His music to J. B. Buckstone's libretto for the opera ‘Love's Alarms’ was very popular, and ten songs from that piece were separately published in 1854. He was also the composer of songs, ballads, romances, cavatinas, serenades, and glees, and of quadrilles, polkas, schottisches, minuets, and marches. Of the music that he wrote for songs probably the best known is that composed for Barham's ‘As I laye a thynkynge,’ and for two songs from the ‘Green Bushes’—‘The Maid with the Milking Pail,’ and ‘The Jug of Punch.’ Some of his compositions appeared in Hullah's ‘Sacred Music for Family Use,’ and in Davison's ‘Musical Bouquet.’

(1822–1880), actress, his wife, whom he married on 31 Dec. 1853, was eldest daughter of Thomas Acton Chaplin (d. November 1859). She made her first appearance in London at the Adelphi Theatre on 7 Oct. 1841, when she played Wilhelm in the aquatic spectacle ‘Die Hexen am Rhein.’ She was for twenty-two years a prominent member of the Haymarket company under the management of J. B. Buckstone. Leaving England for Australia in 1877 she soon became a great favourite in the colonies. After a twelve months' engagement with Mr. Lewis of the Academy of Music, Melbourne, she joined the Lingard company. She was taken ill in Murrundi, New South Wales, but was able to proceed to New Zealand, and acted at Auckland, where she died from acute inflammation, 19 Oct. 1880, aged 58 (Era, 26 Dec. 1880, p. 4; Theatrical Times, 18 Nov. 1848, p. 439, with portrait).

[Era, 25 Jan. 1857, p. 9; Grove's Dictionary of Music (1879), i. 530; Planché's Extravaganzas (1879), iv. 261.]  FITZWILLIAM, FANNY ELIZABETH (1801–1854), actress, daughter of Robert Copeland, manager of the Dover theatrical circuit, was born in 1801 at the dwelling-house attached to the Dover theatre. When an infant of two or three years she was brought on the stage as one of the children in the 'Stranger.' After one or two similar experiments she played, when twelve years of age, the piano at a concert in Margate. Three years later, as Norah in the 'Poor Soldier,' she began a career as leading actress at the Dover theatre. Her first appearance in London took place at the Haymarket, at which house she played in 1817 Lucy in the 'Review,' Cicely in the 'Beehive,' and the page (Chérubin) in 'Follies of a Day' ('Le Mariage de Figaro'). Thence she proceeded to the Olympic, where she played the Countess of Lovelace in 'Rochester.' Engaged by Thomas Dibdin [q. v.] she went to the Surrey, where she replaced Mrs. Egerton [q. v.] as Madge Wildfire in the 'Heart of Midlothian.' In June 1819, in Dibdin's Florence Macarthy,' she is said to have displayed 'distinguished merit' (Theatrical Inquisitor, xiv. 468). As Fanny in 'Maid or Wife,' by Barham Livius, she made, 5 Dec. 1821, her first appearance at Drury Lane, where, 9 Feb. 1822, she was the original Adeline in Howard Payne's 'Adeline or the Victim of Seduction.' On 2 Dec. 1822 she married Edward Fitzwilliam [q, v.] After playing in Dublin and in the country, at the Coburg, the (old) Royalty, and other theatres she was engaged at the Adelphi, appearing 10 Oct. 1825, in a drama called ' Killigrew.' On 31 Oct. 1825 she was the original Kate Plowden in the 'Pilot,' Fitzball's adaptation of the novel by Fenimore Cooper. Sne was also the original Louisa Lovetrick in the 'Dead Shot,' and 21 Oct. 1830 Bella in Buckstone's 'Wreck Ashore.' She played in other dramas of Buckstone and attained high popularity. In 1832 she undertook the management of Sadler's Wells, to which house she transferred the Adelphi success, the 'Pet of the Petticoats,' a ballad burletta. At the Adelphi in 1835 she gave, on the Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, a monologue entitled 'The Widow Wiggins.' She went in 1887 with Webster to the Haymarket, and shortly afterwards started for America, opening at New York as Peggy in the 'Country Girl.' On 4 Nov. she played twelve nights in Boston, and Wemyss, ex-manager of the Chestnut Street Theatre, who saw her, predicted that she would make more money in the United States than any actress, with the exception of Fanny Kemble, who had visited them (see his Theatrical Biog. p. 263, ed. 1848). The prediction appears to have been fulfilled, since America was revisited. She played with Buckstone in New Orleans and went with him to Havannah. After visiting many country towns in England she returned to the Adelphi and played, September 1844, in the 'Belle of