Thomas John Dibdin (21 March 1771 – 16 September 1841) was anEnglishdramatist and songwriter.
Dibdin was the son ofCharles Dibdin, a songwriter and theatre manager, and of "Mrs Davenet", an actress whose real name wasHarriett Pitt.[1] He was introduced to the stage at five years old, in his godfather David Garrick’s pageant of ‘’Jubilee of Shakespeare’’. Mrs Siddons was The Venus and the Young Tom Cupid.[2] He was apprenticed to his maternal uncle, aLondon upholsterer, and later to William Rawlins, afterwardssheriff of London. 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 atLiverpool in 1791; and during this period he composed more than 1,000 songs.
His first work as a dramatist wasSomething New, followed byThe Mad Guardian in 1795. He returned toLondon in 1795, having married two years before; and in the winter of 1798–99The Jew and the Doctor was produced atTheatre Royal, Covent Garden. From this time he contributed a very large number ofcomedies,operas,farces, etc., to the public entertainment, including (in 1802) the comic operaFamily Quarrels. Some of these brought immense popularity to the writer and immense profits to the theatres. It is stated that thepantomime ofMother Goose (1807) produced more than £20,000 for the management at Covent Garden theatre, and theHigh-mettled Racer, adapted as a pantomime from his father's play, £18,000 at Astley's.
Dibdin wasprompter and pantomime writer atTheatre Royal, Drury Lane until 1816, when he took over theSurrey Theatre. This venture proved disastrous, and he became bankrupt. After this, he was manager of theHaymarket Theatre, but without his old success, and his last years were passed in comparative poverty. In 1827 he published two volumes ofReminiscences; 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 theLords of the Admiralty. Of his own songs, "The Oak Table" and "The Snug Little Island" were popular at the time. He died leaving a widow (second wife) and young family.
Charles Dickens quotes from Dibdin's patriotic song "The Snug Little Island" inLittle Dorrit:
Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say,
"If ever I lived upon dry land.
The spot I should hit on would be little Britain!"
Says Freedom, "Why that's my own island!"
Oh, it's a snug little island!
A right little, tight little island,
Search the globe round, none can be found
So happy as this little island.
The song was published posthumously in 1841 in the Addenda (containing songs of T. Dibdin) toSongs of the Late Charles Dibdin, a collection arranged by Thomas Dibdin with sketches byGeorge Cruikshank.[3] A copy was found in Dickens's library after his death.[4]
Dibdin married Nancy Hilliar in 1793.[5] Their granddaughter Eve Mary Dibdin married the tea salesman William Heseltine and was the great grandmother of the British politicianMichael Heseltine.[6]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Dibdin, Thomas John".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Works by or aboutThomas John Dibdin atWikisource