Frances Allitsen

Frances Allitsen was born in London in 1848. Her real name was Mary Frances Bumpus, and Allitsen was the name she used as a composer. Her father was a bookseller, and she was one of seven children. She grew up in a small English village. She later remembered it as a very dull place, where people talked mostly about clothes, and the most exciting event was a sandwich party. As a child she loved books more than music. She wrote stories, and a few of them were printed in magazines. Her family did not want her to make a career in music. She wanted to be a singer, but her voice failed, and she could no longer sing. So she turned to composing.

She showed her music to Thomas Weist Hill, the head of the Guildhall School of Music in London. He saw her talent, but he was sorry that she had started serious study so late. By then she was probably over thirty. To pay for her lessons, she taught singing all day. She travelled from pupil to pupil by train and by bus, and she studied composition at night. She later said that she hardly knew how she lived through those years.

An Old English Love Song was her first success. Soon the most famous singers in Britain were singing her songs. Her best-known song was The Lord Is My Light (1897), with words from the Bible. It was recorded many times and is still sung in churches. Most of her money came from her publishers in America.

She was shy and gentle, and she did not like to push her own music. Her friends did it for her. Young women often came to her and told her about the men they loved. Her sitting room was full of photographs of these young women and of the men they later married. She died in 1912, at 63.

Allitsen had no help from her family, and she lost her voice. But she taught by day and studied by night, until the best singers of her time were singing her songs.