Charles Incledon

[1][2] Charles Benjamin Incledon, the son of a doctor in St Keverne, Cornwall, was educated at Blundell's School and as a choirboy and soloist at Exeter Cathedral, under the tuition of organist and composer William Jackson.

For a while he struggled in companies at Southampton and Salisbury, before gaining a place for a few seasons under John Palmer at the Theatre Royal, Bath:[4] he soon came to the attention of the Venanzio Rauzzini, who gave him instruction, and, much admiring his Handelian singing (notably in 'Total Eclipse' from Samson), publicly called him his scholar.

[9] Incledon's performances, and Shield's new operas, 'made him so popular that for several years he travelled in the summer, and at every considerable town in England gave an entertainment consisting of recitation and songs (on Dibdin's plan), with great applause and profit.

'[10] At Covent Garden a notable production was the revival of The Beggar's Opera in October 1797, with Madame Mara (engaged for twelve nights at huge cost) as Polly and Mrs Martyr as Lucy.

[11] In 1800 the two-act Paul and Virginia (music by Mazzinghi and Reeve) gave Incledon two pieces, one a spirited air with oboe obbligato, and the other, 'Our Country is our Ship' by Townshend won him a general encore.

[13] In February the following year, Thomas Arne's opera Love in a Village was revived for Mrs. Billington, into which she introduced William Boyce's duet 'Together let us range the fields' for herself and Incledon, which was loudly encored.

In the same month was presented a new comic opera written by Dibdin, The Cabinet (the music by various composers), in which Incledon appeared together with John Braham and Nancy Storace, and in delivering the hunting song 'his fine volume of voice filled the whole theatre'.

[15] At Covent Garden, Incledon successfully took on as a tenor several important roles created by his friend the celebrated bass Charles Bannister, about a generation after the original productions.

'[21][22] Incledon sang both in opera and in oratorio, but his chief popularity lay in his delivery of ballads ('not the modern sentimental composition, but of the robust old school'[23]), such as The Lass of Richmond Hill,[24] Sally in our Alley, Black-eyed Susan, The Arethusa, and anything of a bold and manly type.

He was a very forthright man, given to speaking his mind openly to all and sundry (sometimes with humorous results), which also showed itself in the freedom and natural expression of his singing, and he had ample vocal resources to sustain the flights of interpretative impulse which enlivened his performances.

Stevens, a stentorian ballad of near-shipwreck requiring much range of volume and vocal colour, his performance of which assisted his success at Portsmouth in 1793, caused Mrs Siddons to sob like a child, and astonished John Kemble at that great actor's retirement dinner.

Braham, in addition to his own experience as a cantor, owed a great deal to the refined Italian vocal methods taught by his master, the male soprano Venanzio Rauzzini.

Michael Kelly, despite his 'Hibernian elasticity', and his association with very distinguished European musicians, owed his later popular favour as much to his useful endeavours in theatrical management, but as a singer in the English mould was less substantial.

[26] The story is told that Incledon, after singing at a gala night at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds, had a highly convivial evening at the Angel Hotel, during which he gave grave offence to a military gentleman by disparaging his account of an escapade under arms.

Powerful, brilliant, sweet, liquid, rich – it flowed out and onward like a torrent; while its correct intonation, and singularly melodious quality, made its most subdued tones effective.

The comedian Charles Mathews had defended him against the falsehoods put up against Incledon by the theatre managers, and now agreed to embark with him on a provincial tour to Rochester, Canterbury, Margate, Sandwich, Brighton, Chichester, Portsmouth, Cheltenham, Bath, Derby, Hull, York, Wakefield, Doncaster and Sheffield and indeed to Ireland, with an entertainment called 'Mail-coach Adventures'.

The Mathews Memoir includes several entertaining anecdotes of the singer,[38] showing that in many respects he remained childlike all his life, simultaneously generous and parsimonious, and given to hard swearing on all occasions, a person whose escapades and eccentricities were very amusing in retrospect once the embarrassment which they at first caused had passed.