Charles Lockey

He was a choirboy at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1828 to 1836, and afterwards studied singing with Edward Harris at Bath; in 1842 he was a pupil of Sir George Smart.

[2] In 1846 Lockey was engaged for the Birmingham Festival: in the first performance, on 26 August, of Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah he sang "Then shall the righteous".

"A young English tenor," the composer wrote in a letter, "sang the last air so very beautifully that I was obliged to collect myself to prevent my being overcome, and to enable me to beat time steadily.

[1] Lockey retired from public life about 1862, on account of a throat disorder, and entered into business at Gravesend and Dover.

He nominally held his position at St Paul's until his death, but for forty-three years Fred Walker, Joseph Barnby, and Edward Lloyd were his deputies.