Amanda Christian Elizabeth Aldridge [pseud. Montague Ring] (1866–1956), singer and composer. Belived to have lived in Streatham and buried in an unmarked grave in Streatham Park cemetery. Born on 10 March 1866 at Luranah Villa, Hamlet Road, Penge, Surrey, the second of three daughters and third of four children of Ira Frederick Aldridge (1807?–1867), the distinguished African-American tragedian, and his second wife, Swedish opera singer Amanda Pauline, née von Brandt.
At the age of seventeen, she won a foundation scholarship to the newly opened Royal College of Music, where she studied singing (from 1883 to 1887) with Jenny Lind, known as the Swedish Nightingale, and Sir George Henschel. She was also a pupil of Dame Madge Kendal, who had played Desdemona to her father's Othello in 1865.As a teacher, Aldridge's singing pupils included three distinguished African-Americans: tenor Roland Hayes, contralto Marian Anderson, and Paul Robeson. Hayes went on to perform her songs throughout England and Europe. In 1925 she befriended the African-American singer and actor Paul Robeson and his wife, Eslanda, when they visited London.
Thomas Attwood was born in London. At the age of nine he became a chorister in the Chapel Royal, where he received training in music from James Nares and Edmund Ayrton. Attwood lived at "Woodbury" in Norbury Hill , close to Biggin Wood. In 1796 he was chosen as the organist of St Paul's Cathedral, and in the same year he was made composer of the Chapel Royal. His court connection was further confirmed by his appointment as musical instructor to the Duchess of York, and afterwards to the Princess of Wales. In addition to his commitments at St Paul's, at court, and in the theatre, Attwood also found time for private instrumental teaching of a relatively lowly nature. Stevens records that Attwood took over his pupils at Mrs Ray's school, Streatham, in 1800, and his private pupils. Plaque in Cheyne Walk where he later lived and he is buried at St Paul's Cathedral in the crypt under the organ.
The following is an extract from John W Brown of the Streatham Society"...the favourite pupil of Mozart and a famous organist of St Paul's. It was whilst driving from here (Woodbury) to London that he composed his well-known "Coronation Anthem". He composed many pieces and was an intimate friend of Mendelssohn" (John W Brown Streatham Society).
Sir John Barbirolli, CH (2 December 1899 – 29 July 1970) Cellist and conductor. Born Giovanni Battista at 12 Southampton Row, London. Lived with his mother 33 Wavertree Road and then a separate address in Streatham with his wife. In 1929 Barbirolli was appointed conductor of the Covent Garden touring company and also conducted regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in the grand opera season. in April 1943 Barbirolli was invited to become permanent conductor of the Hallé Orchestra (Michael Kennedy).
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax KCVO (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was a composer, poet, and author. Born at 13 Pendennis Road, Streatham (commemorated by a Blue plaque) and educated in Balham, Hampstead and the Royal Academy of Music. Arnold Bax was appointed Master of the King's Music in 1942 during George VI's reign and held the post until his death in 1953. During his five years at the Royal Academy of Music, Bax had become interested in the poetry of W.B. Yeats that sparked a love affair with Ireland and Irish and Celtic culture that continued to his last days. One of his final works was the Coronation March in celebration of the Queen's coronation in June 1953.
Beatrice Boarer was born on 10 October 1887. She lived at 9 Killieser Ave. She joined the D'Oyly Carte chorus at the Savoy in December 1906 for the First London Repertory Season, which ran to August 1907. She filled in on occasion, in February 1907, as Giulia in The Gondoliers and, in May, as Patience in Patience.(D'Oyly Carte).
Ian Charles Bostridge CBE was born on 25 December 1964. An English tenor well known for his performances as an opera and lieder singer. Ian was a chorister at St Leonard's Church. Ian and his elder brother, the biographer Mark, were brought up in Streatham. The family lived at 163 The High. Both boys won scholarships to Dulwich Prep. School and then Westminster. Ian gained a PhD on 17th and 18th century witchcraft from Oxford.
David Neil Butterworth MA, Hon FLCM, music teacher and conductor. Born on 4 September 1934 in Streatham. Died: 2 May 2020 in Melrose, Scotland, aged 85.
Charles Montague Corri was an English musician, conductor and arranger. He spent most of his career working for Lilian Baylis, as her musical director at the Old Vic Theatre, and then at Sadler's Wells Opera. He lived with Martha, Aynsley and Ellen at 122 Gleneagle Road.
James Bloomfield Sarjeant, composer and conductor of 36 Clairview Road, Streatham.
Rosemary Isabel Brown (27 July 1916 – 16 November 2001). A pupil at Rosa Bassett School Streatham and lived in Balham. An English composer, pianist and spirit medium who claimed that dead composers dictated new musical works to her. She created a small media sensation in the 1970s by presenting works purportedly dictated to her by Claude Debussy, Edvard Grieg, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, Igor Stravinsky, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann and Sergei Rachmaninoff Born in Stockwell, Rosemary Dickeson was the daughter of an electrician and a catering manageress. Though her great love was dancing, when she left Rosa Bassett school, Streatham, at the age of 15, her father saw to it that she went to work for the Post Office. Professor of psychology John Sloboda wrote that Brown's music offers "the most convincing case of unconscious composition on a large scale."
Carl Davis was born in New York. An American conductor and Composer and married to actress, TV's Bread star, Jean Boht. Credited with writing music for over a 100 TV programmes and numerous film scores also collaborating with Paul McCartney in the Liverpool Oratorio. Carl and Jean lived in Ambelside Avenue, Streatham, next door to Cynthia Payne.
Madeleine Winefride Isabelle Dring (7 September 1923 – 26 March 1977) was an English composer and actress. She is recorded at 7 Woodfield Avenue, 52 Becmead Avenue and "The Haven" Mount Ephraim Lane (the same house where Dame June Whitfield was born). She attended the Royal College of Music. Her life was celebrated at Church of the English Martyrs on April 4, 1977 and she was buried at Lambeth Cemetery, Blackshaw Road, Tooting. She was a classically trained pianist and composer and published many works during her lifetime. The dining hall at Streatham and Clapham High School is named after her.
Johnny Douglas, composer and arranger of many musical scores including the film the Railway Children. Lived at 18 Broadlands Ave.
Desmond Adolphus Dacres (Desmond Dekker), singer and songwriter, buried at Streatham Park Cemetery. Best known for his hit The Israelites.
Bennoit Abraham Hollander, violinist, conductor and composer. He lived at 23 Westwell Road. Born in Amsterdam and in his 20s was playing in Wagner Concerts at the Albert Hall.
Ann Howard [real name Ann Pauline Giles, née Swadling] (1934–2014), opera singer, was born on 22 July 1934 at 90 Knollys Road, Streatham. She met Keith Desmond Giles(1926–2004), an amateur pianist who had studied at the Royal College of Music and who was to become her husband and full-time manager. They married at St Peter’s Church, Streatham, on 20 March 1954, and had one daughter, Katherine (Kate) (b. 1968). In Wild Grows the Heather, she made her professional debut (as Ann Giles) at Manchester’s Palace Theatre on 13 March 1956. She adopted the stage name of Howard and broadened her stage experience in pantomime, where—again thanks to her commanding height—she was in seasonal demand as principal boy, playing opposite Tommy Steele and other variety stars.At the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1959 she gained a place in the chorus and Sadler’s Wells, Howard’s career blossomed. Carmen soon took her not only to Europe but also to South Africa, Dallas, New Orleans, and New York—these last two opposite Plácido Domingo’s Don José. (Extracts Christopher Webber).
Keith Christopher Ingham, a jazz pianist born February 5th, 1938, and brought up in Streatham. From his memoirs:"In Streatham where we lived there was a wonderful jazz record store called the Swing Shop run by a brilliant jazz scholar and drummer named Dave Carey. Also living in Streatham on my street was another Dave Carey who was part of a famous singing group called the “Stargazers.” Their mail often crisscrossed. The Swing Shop would get fan letters and proposals of marriage from female fans of the well-known singer, embarrassing to say the least! Both Daves were kind to me. In the Swing Shop I could hear jazz records non-stop while Dave the singer took me to BBC broadcasts held in the Paris Cinema Studios in lower Regent Street".
Edward Victor Johnson, singer and radio presenter was born 4 September 1919. In a duo with his wife Pearl Carr, represented the UK in the 1959 Eurovision song contest with Sing, Little Birdie. After the war he joined the resident band at the Locarno dance hall in Streatham, and broadcast as a singer with the bandleader Jack Payne. Johnson worked with several more dance bands before he was hired in 1948 as chief announcer for the English language programmes of Radio Luxembourg. (Guardian)
David William Kelly was born on 13 March 1947 in Streatham. He is blues singer, guitarist and composer, who has been active on the British blues music scene since the 1960s. He has performed with the John Dummer Blues Band, Tramp, The Blues Band, and his own Dave Kelly Band. He is the brother of another blues singer, Jo Anne Kelly.
Jo Ann Kelly was born on 5th January 1944 in Farmhouse Road, Streatham Vale. An English blues singer and guitarist. She is respected for her strong blues vocal style and for playing country blues guitar. Kelly and her older brother Dave were both taken by the blues, and born at the right time to take advantage of a young British blues scene in the early ’60s. They hung around Dave Carey's Swing Shop in Mitcham Lane, Streatham.
Benny Lee was born on 11 August 1916 and was a resident of Streatham Close. Benny had been well known as a band singer before he achieved real fame in 1950 on the radio show Breakfast with Braden which graduated to Bedtime with Braden. (Bernard Braden also a Streatham resident).
Vera Margolies, the daughter of a Russian pianist, Isidor Margolies and was born in Russia. She studied at the Royal Academy of Music winning the Sterndale- Bennet Prize in 1899. She lived at 55 Tierney Road and performed locally at "Deerhurst Hall" Coventry Park. The Streatham News reported "A very fine young pianist Vera Margolies, also appeared and played Rubinstein's Staccato Study and Liszt's Rhapsodie Hongroise. The very names of these difficult selections will indicate that Miss Vera Margolies who is apparently in her early teens is a past mistress in her chosen instrument".
Vanessa Lee (born Winnifred Ruby Moule) was an actress and singer born in Streatham on 18th June 1920. Vanessa was best known for her appearances in Ivor Novello’s musicals in the immediate post-war years as well as appearing occasionally on television. Her husband inherited an Irish peerage, when he became the 8th Baron Graves, but continued to act as Peter Graves. In 1949 she acted in Ivor Novello’s musical, “King’s Rhapsody”, at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, England with Ivor Novello, Zena Dare, Phyllis Dare and Olive Gilbert in the cast. (1954) She acted in Noël Coward’s musical, “After the Ball”, at the Globe Theatre in London, with Peter Graves, Mary Ellis and Graham Payn in the cast. Robert Helpmann was the director. (Vanessa Lee was related to Billy Wells also a Streatham resident- the boxer who hit the gong at the start of Rank films).
Billy Joseph Mayerl. His orchestra performed at the opening of The Locarno Dance Hall in Streatham on 1 October 1929. An English pianist and composer who built a career in music hall and musical theatre and became an acknowledged master of light music. Best known for his syncopated novelty piano solos, he wrote over 300 piano pieces, many of which were named after flowers and trees, including his best known composition, Marigold (1927). He also ran the successful School of Syncopation for whose members he published hundreds of his own arrangements of popular songs.
Count John McCormack, described as the World's Greatest Singer who performed at the Streatham Hill Theatre. He was a resident of 16 Cricklade Ave.
Mike Mckensie was a Guyanese jazz pianist, bandleader, vocalist, composer and arranger, who played in London from the 1950s to the 1980s. He performed with The Humphrey Lyttleton All-Stars, introduced by Denis Preston from the Ballroom at Streatham Ice Rink.
Laurie Morgan, grew up in Streatham and lived at 78 Glennister Park Road. His Guardian Obituary describes him as an "Influential British Jazz experimenter of the 1940s and 50s"As a co-founder of the Club Eleven collective that lit the way toward the establishment of Scott’s London Club in 1959, he devoted much of his life to finding an authentically homegrown sound, collaborating with British composers such as the Streatham-based pianist Stan Tracey and the saxophonist Bobby Wellins – as well as the British beat poets Michael Horovitz and Pete Brown as part of the 60s poetry-and-jazz movement.. He was also assistant musical director at the fledgling National Theatre in the 60s and 70s, and, with the Jamaican bassist Coleridge Goode, was part of a highly regarded 70s trio at the Dingwalls club in Camden. During World War II, he accompanied Jimmy Cagney, then doing his ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ song-and-dance act for troops and airmen at US camp shows in England. He also performed on the Queen Mary cruise ship.
Maxine Nightingale (R&B and soul music singer)- former resident of 19 Woodbourne Avenue was born on 2 November 1952. She is best known for singing hits in the 1970s, with the million seller "Right Back Where We Started From" and "Love Hit Me"
Raymond Stanley Nobel, bandleader and composer was born on 17 December 1903 at 1 Montpelier Terrace, Brighton. The son of Frank Stanley Noble, a London neurologist, and his wife, Maude Edith Poole. He began to play the piano when he was ten, and subsequently studied with Brigain Dale at the Royal Academy of Music for five years, becoming an accomplished player at the age of fifteen and an LRAM at sixteen. Noble already had his sights set on a career in the dance-band world, but for a while worked in a bank at Streatham and led a local band. Noble settled in Streatham- recorded at 7 Streatham High Road with his wife Gladys- and embarked on a brilliant career of composing and arranging.
Ross Parker (born Albert Rostron Parker) (16 August 1914 – 2 August 1974) was an English pianist, composer, lyricist and actor. He is best known for co-writing the songs "We'll Meet Again" and "There'll Always Be an England". Ross Parker lived in the High in Streatham High Road.
Mary Law was a young British violinist, born 1889, died 1919. She recorded a number of sides for Zonophone in 1915, primarily of operatic fantasias - those arrangements that provided audiences the tunes they knew. Mary Law the first wife of Hugh Sewell Kingdon of 66 Woodbourne Avenue. They married at St Leonards on 24th July 1915. Their son Hugh died a few days after Mary's death. Mary Law is also recorded at 13 Becmead Ave and 39 Babbington Road, and 12 The Paragon, Streatham Hill
George John Malcolm, harpsichordist, pianist, organist, conductor, choirmaster, composer was born on 28th February 1917. With his wife Johanna lived at 71 Barrow Road. He was Master of the Cathedral Music, Westminster Cathedral 1947-59; CBE 1965; Papal Knight of the Order of St Gregory 1970
George Arnold Haynes Safroni-Middleton, also known as Count Safroni was born on 3 September 1873. British composer, director, violinist, harpist, writer and amateur astronomer. For several works he used the pseudonym William H. Myddleton. He played the violin in the Orchestra of "Her Majesty's Theatre" in Sydney, the Orchestra of the Opera House in Auckland, the Providence Opera House inProvidence 9Rhode Island) , the Tokyo Orchestra, the Government House (Sarawak) Orchestra and the Government House (Hayti) Mexico Orchestra. As solo performer he toured around Australia, South America, Italy and Spain. Later he became bandmaster of the Orchestra of the Carl Rosa Opera Company. He lived at 25 Palace Road where he died in 1950- buried at West Norwood Cemetery. His Guardian Obituary describes him as an "Influential British Jazz experimenter of the 1940s and 50s".
As a co-founder of the Club Eleven collective that lit the way toward the establishment of Scott’s London Club in 1959, he devoted much of his life to finding an authentically homegrown sound, collaborating with British composers such as the Streatham-based pianist Stan Tracey and the saxophonist Bobby Wellins – as well as the British beat poets Michael Horovitz and Pete Brown as part of the 60s poetry-and-jazz movement. He was also assistant musical director at the fledgling National Theatre in the 60s and 70s, and, with the Jamaican bassist Coleridge Goode, was part of a highly regarded 70s trio at the Dingwalls club in Camden.
Professor Ian Horrace Parrott was born on 5th March 1916. He was born in Streatham Hill on 5th March 1916 and his mother, Muriel, was a violin Teacher. he was brought up in Harrow and was a day boy at Harrow School. One of the most prolific and widely performed British composers of his day, Ian Parrott wrote opera, ballet, symphonies, concertos, string quartets and song cycles as well as choral and vocal works and even the themes music to documentary films His distinctions included the first prize of the Royal Philharmonic Society for his symphonic poem Luxor, and commissions by the BBC and Yale University, and for many leading British musicians. In 1958 his cor anglais concerto was first performed at Cheltenham Festival, and in 1963 his cello concerto was given by William Pleeth and the Hallé Orchestra – both concertos were conducted by Sir John Barbirolli (who also has Streatham connections). He first studied at the Royal College of Music. He was a music scholar at New College, Oxford from 1934 to 1937, where he studied the viola with André Mangeot, and was awarded his doctorate in 1940.
Gabriel Piozzi was born on 27 January 1741. He was an Italian singer and composer who was the second husband of Hester Thrale nee Salusbury who lived at Streatham Park .
James Bloomfield Sarjeant, composer and conductor of 36 Clairview Road, Streatham.
Gerald Edward Shepherd, guitarist, singer and songwriter was born on 28 December 1951. Part of the glam-rock explosion of the Seventies in the Glitter Band. He lived in Gleneldon Rd.
Hal Swain died on 1 September 1966. He is buried at Streatham Park Cemetery. Big band leader and composer. Appeared in "Hal Swain and His Sax-O-Five" (1930), "Classic v Jazz" (1930), "Black and White" (1930) and "Al Fresco" (1930).
Joseph Tabrar died on 22 August 1931. He is buried at Streatham Park cemetery. Composer of music hall songs in the early 1900s, most famous for 'Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow-Wow'. Born into a stage family he began singing in the church choir. He later became a bell hanger and a plumber. During his 60-year songwriting career, Tabrar wrote thousands of songs, many of them written to order; he is known to have written 7,200 songs, but claimed to have written more than twice that number (Source: Secondhand songs).
Stanley William Tracey CBE (30 December 1926 – 6 December 2013) was a British jazz pianist and composer, whose most important influences were Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. Tracey's best known recording is the 1965 album Jazz Suite Inspired by Dylan Thomas's "Under Milk Wood", which is based on the BBC radio drama Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas. He was the house pianist at Ronnie Scotts and lived in Streatham at 11 Mount Ephraim Road.
Phil Tate. Born in Bramley, Yorkshire he was educated at West Leeds High School. He developed an early interest in music, taking up the violin at the age of eight. When the Ilford Palais residency ended, Phil Tate moved to the Locarno in Streatham where he stayed until 1968, at which time he handed the band over to singer Ken Barrie, relinquishing full-time bandleading as he had become part of the Mecca management. (Matters of Melody).
Malcolm Vaughan (22 March 1929 – 9 February 2010) was a Welsh traditional pop music singer and actor. Known for his distinctive tenor voice, he had a number of chart hits in the United Kingdom during the 1950s. He was born Malcolm James Thomas, in Abercynon, South Wales and in May 1968 when living in Hoadly changed his name by Deed Poll to Malcom Vaughan citing his previous addresses as 38 Park Hill Court, Tooting and 31 Hoadly Road, Streatham, selling his house to Roy Hudd.
Gene Vincent (Vincent Eugene Craddock) married Streatham girl Margaret Russell Griffith and It is reported Gene was a former resident in Leigham Court Road.
