Lionel Monckton
| Lionel J. A. Monckton | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
18 December 1861 London, England |
| Died | 15 February 1924 (aged 62) London |
| Resting place | Brompton Cemetery |
| Residence | London |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | English writer, composer |
| Spouse(s) | Gertie Millar |
| Parent(s) | John Monckton, Maria Louisa Long |
Lionel John Alexander Monckton (18 December 1861 – 15 February 1924) was an English writer and composer of musical theatre. He became Britain's most popular composer of Edwardian musical comedy in the early years of the 20th century.
Monckton was born in London, the eldest son of the Town Clerk of London, Sir John Braddick Monckton, and Lady Monckton, the former Maria Louisa Long (1837–1920), an "enthusiastic amateur actress". His sister was Mrs Augusta Moore, who wrote popular novels as Martin J. Pritchard.
He was educated at Charterhouse School and Oriel College at Oxford University, graduating in 1885. There he acted in college theatrical productions and composed music for productions of the Oxford University Dramatic Society, of which he was a founder, and the Phil-Thespian Club. He initially joined the legal profession at Lincoln's Inn and began to practise law, but gained part-time work as a songwriter and a theatre and music critic, first for the Pall Mall Gazette and later for the Daily Telegraph. His first theatre work was Mummies and Marriage, an operetta produced by amateurs in 1888. At the age of 29, in 1891, he finally managed to place the song "What will you have to Drink?", with lyrics by Basil Hood, in a professional musical burlesque called Cinder Ellen up too Late. After this, his songs were included in several other London shows.
Monckton soon became a regular composer (and sometimes lyricist) of songs for the very successful series of frothy musical comedies performed at London's Gaiety Theatre, under the management of George Edwardes, which premiered throughout the 1890s and into the first decade of the 20th Century. Among others, he wrote half of the music for Arthur Roberts's burlesque Claude Du-Val (1894) and supplemented Ivan Caryll's score for the hit musical The Shop Girl in the same year, with such successful pieces as George Grossmith, Jr.'s "Beautiful Bountiful Bertie" and "Brown of Colorado" (with Adrian Ross). He then added popular tunes to Caryll's scores for The Circus Girl in 1896 ("A Little Bit of String" and "The Way to Treat a Lady") and A Runaway Girl in 1898 ("Soldiers in the Park", "Society", "The Sly Cigarette", "The Boy Guessed Right" and "Not the Sort of Girl I Care About").
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