The Story of Michael Maybrick
This is a short biography of Michael Maybrick also known as Stephen Adams 1841 - 1913, singer and composer of a great many popular songs including the ever popular Victorian ballad "The Holy City" in 1892.
Born in 1841 at 8 Church Alley Liverpool, he was the fourth of eight children of William and Susannah Maybrick. His father an engraver and parish clerk at St Peter's church in the city centre (now demolished), a post previously held by his grandfather, both were amateur musicians. His uncle Michael Maybrick also wrote sacred music, played the organ at St Peter's and conducted Liverpool Choral Society. Proficient on the piano at an early age, Maybrick junior studied the organ and became organist at St Peter's at the age of fifteen.
In 1865 he went to Leipzig to further his musical studies and later, having a fine baritone voice, trained as a singer in Milan with Italy's most respected voice coaches. His training and experience in Italian concert halls and theatres subsequently laid the foundations of a successful singing career, beginning with appearances in London productions of Mendelssohn's Elijah and Wagner's Lohengrin in 1869, followed by performances at leading concert venues in London and the provinces including a number with the Carl Rosa Opera Company. By the early 1870s Maybrick or Stephen Adams as he is now known was composing and singing his own songs, mostly using lyrics provided by Frederick Weatherly, whose Roses of Picardy was set to music by Haydn Woods in 1916 and became an anthem commemorating the young lives lost in the Great War. Maybrick's songs became very popular selling millions of copies over several years, and in 1884 he toured the United States performing them.
Apart from his musical career he was a Captain in the Artists Rifles and keen amateur sportsman, enjoying yachting, cycling and playing cricket. In 1893 at the age of 52 he married his forty-year-old housekeeper, Laura Withers and they settled in Ryde on the Isle of Wight, taking in the two children of his cotton merchant brother, James, whose wife Florence had been found guilty of her husband's murder by poisoning at their home Battlecrease House, Riversdale Road Aigburth in 1889. Her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and after serving fifteen years Florence was released in 1904, when doubts were raised about the evidence and the safety of the conviction, the verdict being declared void. Michael Maybrick meanwhile became a magistrate, chairman of the Isle of Wight Hospital and was five times mayor of Ryde. He died in 1913 of heart failure in Buxton where he had been receiving treatment for gout. He is buried in Ryde.
Palfreyman - January 2018
Farthingale Publications: ..... Is a hobby web site containing articles of local interest to Lancastrians, some favourite walking and cycling routes, selected words and poetry, and some writings of more general nature as well as the authors own picture gallery. Access is available via the homepage and menu at the head of the page or via one of the direct links below.
Local Interest: A Cricket Calypso; A Lancashire Lullaby; Dust Upon God's Fair Earth; God's Choir; Isaac Watts 1674 - 1748; It's a Funny Life; John Byrom 1692 - 1793; John Lancaster Wigan MP; Jubilee Park Memorial, Ashton in Makerfield; Little Ships at War 1918; Mind Your Language; Not Much of a Warrior; Peveril of the Peak; Private Thomas Whitham VC; Richmond Hill Dairies; Scot Lane School Wigan; The Brocklebank Line; The Farewell; The Holy City Liverpool; The Lindsays of Haigh; The Nurburgring 1960; Thomas Aspinwall Miners Agent; Thomas Aspinwall Obituary; Thomas Linacre School Wigan; Upholland Telephone Exchange; Wigan Advertisements 1960; Wigan Old Bank 1792; Wigan Soldier Missing in Action.
Walking & Cycling: Abbey Lakes to Coppull Moor; A Lancashire Linear Walk; Blackrod or Bust; Chorley Ice Cream Walk; Cycle the Monsal Trail; Cycle the Sankey Valley; Douglas Valley Dawdle; Freshfield to Crosby; Haigh to Borsdane Wood; Irwell Valley Trail (Bury to Rawtenstall); Irwell Valley Trail (Bury to Salford); Moss Eccles Tarn; Three Counties Cycle Ride; Wigan Circular by Bike.
Words & Poetry: A Lancashire Mon; A Legend of Montrose; A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea; Aw've Turned me bit O' Garden O'er; Boat Song; Calm is the Sea; David Copperfield; Dombey and Son; Dover Harbour; Dust upon God's Fair Earth; God Bless these Poor Wimmen that's Childer; High Flight; Hymn Before Action; Jeff Unsworth's dialect poetry; King Cotton; Martin Chuzzlewit; Martyrs of the Arena; Mind Your Language; Only a Cranky Owd Foo'; On Th' Hills; Redgauntlet; Rogue Herries; The Antiquary; The Armada; The Bride of Lammermoor; Th' Coartin' Neet; The Cottage; The Darkling Thrush; The Donkey; The Fair Rosamond; The Fair Rosamond Comic; The Family Man; The Glory of the Garden; The Heart of Midlothian; The Pickwick Papers; The Rolling English Road; The Wanderer; The Wreck of the Hesperus; Toddlin' Whoam; Tommy; When Winds Breathe Soft; Wisdom.
Wallgate Chronicles: Adolphe Adam; A Tale of Two Cities; A Walk in the Hills; Barnaby Rudge; Bookcase; Cat Bells; Desert Island Discs; Eay Times Uv Changed; Fidelio; Frank Whittle and the Jet Engine; Fun with Trigonometry; Hard Times; Hugo Boss comes to Wigan; In the footsteps of the Manchester Rambler; Ivanhoe; Little Dorrit; Lohengrin; Nicholas Nickleby; Our Mutual Friend; Rob Roy; Romance on a Budget; Semele; Surprise at the Philharmonic; The Battle of Solferino; The Bohemian Girl; The Fair Maid of Perth; The Force of Destiny; The Getaway Car; The Marriage of Figaro; The Old Curiosity Shop; The Ravioli Room; The Spectroscope; The Switchroom Wigan; Travels in Time 1960; Travels in Time 2010.
