Charles Dibdin was an English composer, musician, dramatist, novelist, singer and actor. With over 600 songs to his name, for many of which he wrote both the lyrics and the music and performed them himself, he was in his time the most prolific English singer-songwriter. He is best known as the composer of "Tom Bowling", one of his many sea songs, which often features at the Last Night of the Proms. He also wrote about 30 dramatic pieces, including the operas The Waterman (1774) and The Quaker (1775), and several novels, memoirs and histories. His works were admired by Haydn and Beethoven.
Charles Dibdin, 1799, by Thomas Phillips (died 1845), oil on canvas
Manuscript in Dibdin's hand of "Mourn Ye Damsels of the Court"
Celtic cross memorial to Dibdin, erected by public subscription in 1889, after his original tomb collapsed, in St Martin's Gardens, Camden Town
David Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil and friend of Samuel Johnson. He appeared in several amateur theatricals, and with his appearance in the title role of Shakespeare's Richard III, audiences and managers began to take notice.
Portrait by Thomas Gainsborough, 1770
Have mercy, Jesu! Soft! I did but dream. O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! – Shakespeare's Richard III Act V, Sc. 3. David Garrick in 1745 as Richard III just before the battle of Bosworth Field, his sleep having been haunted by the ghosts of those he has murdered, wakes to the realization that he is alone in the world and death is imminent. Painting by the English painter William Hogarth (which is on display at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool).
Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy, 1760–61 at Waddesdon Manor
Garrick (right) as Abel Drugger in Jonson's The Alchemist painted by Johann Zoffany
