Ben Davies (tenor)

In 1883 he created the role of Gringoire in Arthur Goring Thomas's Esmeralda, in the first Carl Rosa season at Drury Lane Theatre: his future wife Clara Perry was in the cast as Fleur-de-lys.

In November 1891 he created the tenor lead in the London production of André Messager's La Basoche (also at the Royal English Opera House), in which the basso David Bispham made his stage debut, as Duc de Longueville.

[6] Shaw remarked, Mr Ben Davies conquers, not without evidence of an occasional internal struggle, his propensity to bounce out of the stage picture and deliver his high notes over the footlights in the attitude of irrepressible appeal first discovered by the inventor of Jack-in-the-box.

In the voyage concert of the Atlantic crossing his piano accompanist was a 14-year-old passenger, Thomas Beecham, travelling with his father, who later wrote: 'His was a voice of uncommon beauty, round, full, and expressive, less inherently tenor than baritone, and, like all organs of this mixed genre, thinning out perceptibly on top.

[16] In 1897, at the sixth concert of the Royal Philharmonic Society (dedicated to 'Her Majesty's Record Reign'), he sang Frederick Cowen's Scena The Dream of Endymion under the composer's baton.

[20] Nearly a decade later, he was among the soloists (with Agnes Nicholls, Ellen Beck, Edna Thornton, Thorpe Davies and Robert Radford) in J. S. Bach's Mass in B minor at the Queen's Hall, in the penultimate concert of the 1911 London Music Festival.

The 1901 session (Gramophone and Typewriter Company 2-2500/2-2504 Black 'Concert' label) resulted in five titles, including also Schubert's Serenade (Leise flehen), Frederic Clay's I'll sing thee songs of Araby, Michael Balfe's When other lips and Charles Dibdin's Tom Bowling.

[28] In June 1903 he headed-up the first 12" male solo catalogue list (Black Label 'Monarch') with record 02000 (Charles Dibdin's Tom Bowling), with 02003 (I'll sing thee songs of Araby) and 02004 (Gounod, Salve dimora) closely following.

[30] He returned to the Gramophone Company (then HMV) in 1913–1914 to make 12" records of I'll sing thee songs of Araby (02477), Come into the garden, Maud (02482), To Mary (02514), Tosti's My Dreams and Adams's The Star of Bethlehem (02498).

In 1932 he was persuaded by Joe Batten (a Brother Savage) to re-make a small group of his best-known earlier recordings (six) by the electric process, including To Mary, I'll Sing Thee Songs of Araby, I Know of Two Bright Eyes and Come into The Garden, Maud.