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

Royal Philharmonic Society

Royal Philharmonic Society

Created as the Philharmonic Society of London, it had an orchestra which initially performed in the 'old' Argyll Rooms in Regent Street, and continued in the replacement building until that was des...

Group, Music / songs

1 memorial
Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson

Singer, actor (also athlete and civil rights activist). Born Princeton, New Jersey to a former slave, who educated himself to become a theologian and who had great expectations of his son, expectat...

Person, Cinema, Music / songs, Race Issues, Seriously Famous, Theatre, USA

1 memorial
Maida Vale Studios

Maida Vale Studios

Opened as the Maida Vale roller skating palace and club. Demolished and rebuilt in 1933/34, It now comprises seven studios and is used for recording a large variety of music and other programmes fo...

Building, Music / songs, TV & Radio

1 memorial
Shepherd's Bush Empire

Shepherd's Bush Empire

Theatre. Built for impresario Oswald Stoll and designed by Frank Matcham. Amongst its first performers were the Fred Karno troupe featuring Charlie Chaplin. When the appeal of variety shows began t...

Building, Music / songs, Theatre, TV & Radio

1 memorial
W. H. Whitaker

W. H. Whitaker

Student of Trinity College of Music, killed in WW1.

Person, Armed Forces, Music / songs

War dead, WW1
1 memorial