Thomas John Dibdin

He summoned his second master unsuccessfully for rough treatment; and after a few years of service he ran away to join a company of country players.

From 1789 to 1795 he played all sorts of parts; he worked as a scene painter at Liverpool in 1791; and during this period he composed more than 1,000 songs.

He returned to London in 1795, having married two years before; and in the winter of 1798–99 The Jew and the Doctor was produced at Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.

In 1827 he published two volumes of Reminiscences; and at the time of his death he was preparing an edition of his father's sea songs, for which a small sum was allowed him weekly by the Lords of the Admiralty.

Charles Dickens quotes from Dibdin's patriotic song "The Snug Little Island" in Little Dorrit: Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say, "If ever I lived upon dry land.