SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: From a simple entry in the registers of Croydon Minster, DAVID MORGAN uncovers the story of a family of performers, including the leader of the regular concert party at the Crystal Palace
Opera star: born in Croydon, William Burgon became a leading singer of the Victorian age
The baptismal registers at Croydon Minster contain the names of thousands of babies. For many of these children growing up, their careers would see them follow in their family footsteps, carrying on the business or learning the same craft or trade.
Sometimes, however, the child went in a completely different direction. This is one of those stories.
William Henry Burgon was born on January 3, 1858 and christened in what was then known as Croydon Parish Church on Wednesday, August 25, of the same year. His parents were named in the register as William Burgon and Anne Rabbeth (née Gill). His father was a solicitor. They had been married in St Mary’s, Kennington Park Road.
Evidence from the 1861 Census shows young William’s family living in comfort in Croydon. William and his wife Anne had five children, with four servants. Anne’s mother was also living with them.
The 1871 Census, though, showed that life had dramatically changed for the family.
William, the solicitor and bread-winner, had died and so Anne, together with three of her children, were then living in Sutton where she was working as a governess. She still had enough money to employ one servant.
From the Minster: the baptismal record for William Burgon in 1858
One little daughter, Emily, had been packed off to the London Orphan Asylum and an older sister was at Boswell House School in Croydon. Young William Burgon was not part of the household. Where had he been sent to?
Ten years later, in the 1881 Census, William, by now 23, and Emily had been reunited and were living with their mother at 12, Clapham Common Gardens, in Battersea.
William must have had some money and social standing by then, as his change of address was announced with an advertisement in The Times on April 1. In that year’s Census,
William’s occupation was given as an opera singer.
William had studied at the Royal Academy of Music and, his singing tutor being Manuel Garcia, the Spanish baritone.
Burgon performed in Croydon in December 1880. It was reported in The Musical Times that he appeared as a soloist at the Large Public Hall as part of a varied programme of classical music. His solos were “well received”. In a later review, one critic said “he was the possessor of an almost Santleyan voice” – a reference to Sir Charles Santley, the most eminent English baritone and male concert singer of the Victorian era.So quite a complement for young Burgon.
Star attraction: by 1890, Burgon’s company was the regular concert performers at the Crystal Palace
Burgon performed in a concert in Sutton, too, later that year at their new public hall.
In August 1880 at the Royal Academy, he was awarded a silver medal for singing.
Looking through concert posters, it seemed that William Burgon made his debut in the main London venues in 1881 singing the bass solos in Bach’s B Minor Mass in June and in Handel’s Judas Maccabeus in November. The next March he was singing in Aberdeen, in a concert version of Bohemian Girl, an opera written by Michael Balfe.
Burgon received a second medal from the Royal Academy in 1882, this time “for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts.”
During the next few years William Burgon was a very busy man. He joined the Carl Rosa Opera Company and was in great demand as a soloist, appearing in two premieres of new works with that company.
In January 1885, he appeared as Le Comte des Grieux in Jules Massenet’s opera Manon in Liverpool. In April that year, at Druty Lane, he played the part of Ostap in a new opera Nadeshda by Arthur Goring Thomas.
His career was on the way up. He sang in Carmen when performed in Edinburgh by the Carl Rosa Company in 1885, as was the bass soloist for Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall in March 1887.
Palace performers: Burgon’s work at the Palace continued for several years
He found time in his busy career to get married. In 1887, he wed a Parisian, Zoe Chatenet.
In the next few years, they had at least three children: Adeline, Frances and Adrian.
Burgon’s name appeared less often in major opera productions after his marriage. He was still asked to play some major roles, though. He was in the premiere of Marjorie a three-act comic opera performed at the Prince of Wales’ Theatre in 1890.
The most significant of his later roles was in 1891 at the the London premiere of Ivanhoe in 1891, written by Sir Arthur Sullivan. On this occasion, in adapting the Sir Walter Scott novel, Sullivan did not work with his usual lyricist William Gilbert. Here, the libretto was written by Julian Sturgis. Burgon, at 33 years old, played the part of Cedric the Saxon.
The last mention of a major London role was in 1891 when he sung the role of King Louis XII in Andre Messager’s opera, The Bosche, for the Royal English Opera.
Burgon’s name still appeared in the music press, but in a different way. In 1890, he founded the Burgon Costume Opera Recital Company, who put on opera nights in the suburbs.
Landmark theatre: Crystal Palace, at the top of Sydenham Hill, was a major venue for entertainments of many kinds, including concert parties, until its destruction by fire in 1936
In 1891, his opera company was appearing every Thursday evening in the Crystal Palace Concert Season. Seats were free but you could pay sixpence to reserve one. This must have been a well-rewarded gig: Burgon’s company was still appearing there five years later, in 1896.
Reviews showed that the company were popular and that they travelled widely, both within London and the south-east, as well as to major industrial cities in the north of England, such as Leeds and Manchester.
An advertisement for his company in The Musical Times in March 1896 showed that Burgon had moved house to Marlborough Road, Bedford Park. He was still appearing as a soloist for various choral society productions around the country at this time, too.
The constant travelling and heavy work load, though, took its toll on Burgon.
One of his last appearances was at Reading with the Philharmonic Society in May 1897, singing in a concert version of The Lady of the Lake. He died the next year, aged 40, after a painful illness. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery.
Panto star: Adeline Burgon as Tommy in Dick Whittington in Leeds in 1910
If William Burgon’s life went in a totally different direction to that of his father, then two of his children inherited their father’s love of performing and followed in his footsteps on to the stage.
Adrian Burgon, born in 1888, trod the boards in a variety of roles, often musical. Initially finding his voice as a choir boy, in 1922 he appeared in a musical play The Lady of the Rose, in Daly’s Theatre, just off Leicester Square. He was also in the English version of the German comedy Alt Heidelberg. He played Jack Travers in a touring company’s production of Rookery Nook, the Ben Travers farce, and was in Jolly Times, a revue, for which one of the hosting theatres was the Empire in Croydon in June 1919.
Adeline Burgon became an actress. Born in 1890, her stage career peaked between 1909 and 1916. She was in CP Levilly’s company in 1906 which put on La Poupee. She was in the Merry Widow in 1909 with Octavia Barry. The part of Tommy in the pantomime Dick Whittington in 1910 at the Grand Theatre, Leeds, was hers.
She appeared in New York for a season in 1913 as part of Horace Goldin’s Company playing at the Palace Theatre. Goldin was to become famous for patenting the illusion of sawing a woman in half.
Adeline Burgon’s final professional engagement was touring Britain in 1916 with a production of The Girl in the Taxi. There is no evidence that she ever appeared on the stage in her father’s home town of Croydon.
The Burgon family story is fascinating, more than half a century of creativity. From a simple entry in a church register to a pantomime appearance in Leeds and performing on the West End and on Broadway.
David Morgan, pictured, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Read all about it! Croydon’s streets of crime from 100 years ago
- Here’s the news in 1925: policing, airport expansion and sport
- Prize-winning ‘English Conrad’ whose books spanned the globe
- From Brooke Bond vans to Bubblecars, Trojan was in top gear
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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