Michael Maybrick was an English composer and singer, best known under his pseudonym Stephen Adams as the composer of "The Holy City

The Holy City (song)

The Holy City is a semi-religious Victorian ballad dating from 1892, with music by Michael Maybrick writing under the alias Stephen Adams, with lyrics by Frederic Weatherly.-Context:...

," one of the most popular religious songs in English.

Early life

Born at 8 Church Alley, Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, the fourth of the seven sons of William Maybrick (1815–1853?), an engraver, and his wife, Susannah (1815?–1883?), both his grandfather and father served as parish clerk at St Peter's, Liverpool, and were minor composers. His uncle Michael Maybrick (1799–1846) was organist at St Peter's, wrote sacred music, and conducted the Liverpool Choral Society. Having become proficient on the piano by the age of eight, the young Maybrick studied the organ with W. T. Best and at the age of fifteen became organist of St Peter's; he also wrote anthems and had a work performed in London.

Musical career

In 1865 Maybrick went to Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

 to study keyboard and harmony with Carl Reinecke

Carl Reinecke

Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke was a German composer, conductor, and pianist.-Biography:Reinecke was born in Altona, Hamburg, Germany; until 1864 the town was under Danish rule. He studied with his father, Johann Peter Rudolph Reinecke, a music teacher...

, Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles

Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso, whose career after his early years was based initially in London, and later at Leipzig, where he succeeded his friend and sometime pupil Felix Mendelssohn as head of the Conservatoire.-Sources:Much of what we know about Moscheles's life...

, and Louis Plaidy

Louis Plaidy

Louis Plaidy was a celebrated German piano pedagogue and compiler of books of technical music studies....

, but later decided to train as a baritone with Gaetano Nava in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

. After gaining experience in Italian theatres, he appeared with great success in London on 25 February 1869 in Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

's Elijah. Further success came as Telramund in Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Lohengrin

Lohengrin (opera)

Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...

led to appearances with Charlotte Sainton-Dolby, including her farewell concert on 6 June 1870, and to regular engagements at the English festivals and with the Carl Rosa Opera Company

Carl Rosa Opera Company

The Carl Rosa Opera Company was founded in 1873 by Carl August Nicholas Rosa, a German-born musical impresario, to present opera in English in London and the British provinces. The company survived Rosa's death in 1889, and continued to present opera in English on tour until 1960, when it was...

. He appeared as a baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

 at all the leading concert venues in London and the provinces, as well as in English opera.

By the early 1870s Maybrick was singing his own songs, beginning with 'A Warrior Bold’. Published under the pseudonym Stephen Adams and mostly with lyrics by Fred Weatherly, his songs achieved extraordinary popularity. His early sea song ‘Nancy Lee’ sold more than 100,000 copies in two years. Maybrick penned other sea songs including ‘The Tar's Farewell’, ‘They All Love Jack’, and ‘The Midshipmite’, sentimental songs such as ‘Your Dear Brown Eyes’, romanctic numbers like ‘The Children of the City’, and sacred songs like ‘The Blue Alsatian Mountains’, ‘The Star of Bethlehem’, and the well-loved ‘Holy City’. In 1884 he toured the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 performing his own songs. His friends spoke of his charming personality, but others thought him arrogant and vain.

Retirement

Maybrick was a keen amateur sportsman, being a cricketer, a yachtsman and a cyclist, and a Captain in the Artists Rifles. On 9 March 1893 he married his forty-year-old housekeeper, Laura Withers, and settled with her at Ryde

Ryde

Ryde is a British seaside town, civil parish and the most populous town and urban area on the Isle of Wight, with a population of approximately 30,000. It is situated on the north-east coast. The town grew in size as a seaside resort following the joining of the villages of Upper Ryde and Lower...

 on the Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...

. They were joined there by the two children of his brother, James Maybrick

James Maybrick

James Maybrick was a Liverpool cotton merchant. After his death, his wife, Florence Maybrick, was convicted of his murder by poisoning in a sensational trial. The "Aigburth Poisoning" case was widely reported in the press on both sides of the Atlantic...

, a suspect in the Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

 case, and whose wife Florence

Florence Maybrick

Florence Elizabeth Maybrick was an American woman convicted in Great Britain of murdering her considerably older husband, James Maybrick.-Early life:...

 was the lead suspect and convicted of his suspicious murder in 1889 (A re-examination of her case resulted in her release in 1904). Maybrick became chairman of the Isle of Wight Hospital, was a magistrate

Magistrate

A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...

 and was five times mayor

Mayor

In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....

 of Ryde. He was also a Freemason

Freemasonry

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...

. He had been at Buxton

Buxton

Buxton is a spa town in Derbyshire, England. It has the highest elevation of any market town in England. Located close to the county boundary with Cheshire to the west and Staffordshire to the south, Buxton is described as "the gateway to the Peak District National Park"...

 for three weeks being treated for periodic gout when he died in his sleep of heart failure on 26 August 1913. He was buried four days later at Ryde.

External links

• Obituary in Liverpool Mercury, 30 August 1913