Person    | Male  Born 14/1/1644  Died 27/9/1714

Thomas Britton

Categories: Music / songs

Held weekly concerts over his coal merchant's shop in Jerusalem Passage, from 1678. Important composers such as Pepusch and, it is also rumoured, Handel, paid visits to his musical evenings.

Popularly known as "the musical small-coal man". The weekly concert series continued for 36 years and he was befriended by members of the aristocracy, who came to the music room in the converted loft over his coal house to hear some of the great performers of the day. He was also a book collector and his contributions to British intellectual life were noted by such literary luminaries as Jonathan Swift and Horace Walpole.

Poet Matthew Prior, wrote the following after Britton’s death:
Tho’ doom’d to Small Coal, yet, to Arts ally’d,
Rich without Wealth and Famous without Pride,
Musick’s Best Patron, Judge of Books and Men,
Belov’d and Honour’d by Apollo’s Train;
In Greccae or Rome, sure never did appear
So Bright a Genius, in so dark a Sphere;
More of the Man had artfully been Sav’d,
Had Kneller painted and had Vertue Grav’d.

Born Northamptonshire. Died, according to legend, from shock generated by a practical joke: one of his (supposed) friends, a magistrate, employed a ventriloquist to assume the voice of God, commanding him to his knees. He died a few days later.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Thomas Britton

Commemorated ati

Thomas Britton

Historic Site Here stood the house of Thomas Britton, 1644 - 1714, the music...

Read More

Other Subjects

Wally Fawkes

Wally Fawkes

Cartoonist and clarinettist. Born in Vancouver, his family emigrated to Britain in 1931. During WW2 he started playing in jazz bands including George Webb's Dixielanders and Humphrey Lyttleton's ba...

Person, Music / songs, Canada

1 memorial
Richard William Robertson

Richard William Robertson

For 39 years the organist of All Saints Talbot Road, W11. Andrew Behan has researched Robertson: Richard William Robertson was born in Kensington in 1880, the eldest of the eleven children of Will...

Person, Music / songs

1 memorial
Elizabeth Mitchell

Elizabeth Mitchell

Singer. Born in Jamaica, her family emigrated to London in 1963. Known as Liz Mitchell, she joined the cast of the musical 'Hair' and eventually moved to Berlin to join the German production, where...

Person, Music / songs, Caribbean Islands, Germany

1 memorial
Equity

Equity

UK Trade Union representing professional performers and other creative workers.

Group, Cinema, Community / Clubs, Music / songs, Theatre, TV & Radio

1 memorial
original HMV store

original HMV store

Londonist writes: "The building was destroyed on Boxing Day 1937 and reopened in 1939. HMV's flagship store moved (slightly) to 150 Oxford Street, but the old address was reacquired in 2013, and re...

Place, Commerce, Music / songs

1 memorial

Previously viewed

James Bowen

James Bowen

Children's author. Born Surrey as James Anthony Bowen. His mother moved him as a child to Australia. Aged 17 he returned to the UK but he became homeless, began begging and started using heroin. Hi...

Person, Literature, Australia

1 memorial
F. W. Coles

F. W. Coles

Resident of the West Ward, Hendon who served and died in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces

War dead, WW1
1 memorial
John Desmond Bernal

John Desmond Bernal

NW1, Albert Street, 44

English Heritage John Desmond Bernal, 1901 - 1971, crystallographer, lived and died here.

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
The Woking Martian

The Woking Martian

GU21, Crown Square, Woking

Around the sculpture are several pavement slabs representing the bacteria, which were the downfall of the Martians.

2 subjects commemorated, 2 creators