Charles Dignum

Charles Dignum (c. 1765 – 29 March 1827) was a popular tenor singer, actor and composer of English birth and Irish parentage who was active in recital, concert and theatre stage, mainly in London, for about thirty years.

Charles was the son of an Irish Roman Catholic tailor, whose home and business moved from Rotherhithe to Lincoln's Inn Fields during the boy's childhood. He became a chorister in the Sardinian Embassy Chapel in Duke Street, where he was taken on as a vocal pupil by Samuel Webbe, the organist. The boy had plans to enter the church, but was apprenticed by his father to a carver-gilder, with whom, however, he soon fell out, and after some months he articled himself to Thomas Linley the elder, the composer and singing master.

Linley launched him on his public career in spring 1784, at first in the Handel memorial concerts at Westminster Abbey and the Pantheon, and then at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where he first appeared as Young Meadows in Love in a Village: 'His figure was rather unfavourable for the part, but his voice was so clear and full-toned, and his manner of singing so judicious, that he was received with great applause.' His next role was Cymon in Michael Arne's opera. In a busy first year he was well-received, appearing in various roles, and made his place alongside many well-established performers. 'On the removal of the elder Bannister to the Royalty Theatre, Dignum succeeded to a caste of parts more suited to his person and his voice, which was a fine tenor. Amongst other characters those of Hawthorn' (Love in a Village) 'and Giles' (The Maid of the Mill) (libretti by Isaac Bickerstaffe, 1762 and 1765 respectively) 'particularly suited him: indeed he was thought superior in them to any actor that had appeared since the days of John Beard, their original representative.' Dignum was the original performer of Crop the miller, in Stephen Storace's No song, no supper, and of Abdalla in Storace's Dido, Queen of Carthage. He was also well known as Tom Tug in Dibdin's The Waterman, in which role there is an illustration of him in the Garrick Club.

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