Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/185

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Sainton
173
St. Paul

the post of professor of the violin in the conservatoire there. Four years later he appeared in England and played at a Philharmonic concert, under the conductorship of Mendelssohn, with whom he was intimate. In 1845 he settled in London on being appointed on 7 Feb. professor of the violin at the Royal Academy of Music, a post he occupied till his death. Sainton was one of the musicians who took part in the experimental stages of the Popular Concerts in 1859 (cf. The Story of Ten Hundred Concerts, London, 1887), and became first violin in the orchestras of the Musical Union, the Philharmonic Society, the Sacred Harmonic Society, the Quartet Association, and the Royal Italian Opera, under Costa, for whom he frequently acted as deputy in the office of conductor. He was well known, too, at the chief provincial festivals; and so busy was he as a teacher that it was his proud boast that at the last Birmingham festival before his death all the violinists had been his pupils or had studied under his pupils. Among his published compositions are two violin concertos. In 1862 he conducted the music at the opening of the International Exhibition. In June 1883 he gave a farewell concert at the Albert Hall. He died on 17 Oct. 1890, and was buried in his wife's grave at Highgate.

His wife, Charlotte Helen Sainton-Dolby (1821–1885), whom he married in 1860, was well known as a contralto vocalist. Her maiden name was Dolby. Born in London on 17 May 1821, she soon showed unusual musical ability, and in 1832 entered the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied under John Bennett, Elliott, and Crivelli. Crivelli, who examined her for voice on her entrance to the Royal Academy of Music, recommended her ‘for the present not to make it a principal study’ (cf. ‘A History of the Royal Academy of Music’ in the Overture, 1892, p. 127). Five years later she was elected to a king's scholarship. On 14 June 1841 she made her first appearance as a singer at a Philharmonic concert, and sang under Mendelssohn's auspices at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig on 25 Oct. 1845 with such success as induced her to make a tour abroad. Mendelssohn dedicated to her his six songs (Op. 57), and wrote the contralto music in ‘Elijah’ with a view to her voice. She appeared in the first performance of the revised version of that oratorio at Exeter Hall on 16 April 1847 under the composer's direction, and from that date until her retirement from professional life in 1870 she occupied the foremost place among concert contralti in England. In 1872 she opened a vocal academy in London. Mme. Sainton-Dolby excelled chiefly in ballad-singing, but was also known as a composer. Among her compositions are the cantatas ‘The Legend of St. Dorothea’ (London, 1876), ‘The Story of the Faithful Soul’ (London, 1879), ‘Florimel’ (for female voices) (London, 1885), and ‘Thalassa’ (a number of songs and ballads, some of which enjoyed an ephemeral popularity). She also wrote a ‘Tutor for English Singers’ (London, n.d. 8vo). Her last appearance in public took place at her husband's farewell concert in June 1883. She died in Gloucester Place, Hyde Park, on 18 Feb. 1885, and was buried in the same grave as her mother at Highgate cemetery. A scholarship in her memory was founded at the Royal Academy of Music.

[Musical Times, 1885 pp. 145–6, 1890 p. 665; Hanslick's Geschichte des Concertwesens in Wien, 1869, p. 340; Berühmte Geiger, p. 189; Mr. F. G. Edwards's History of Mendelssohn's Elijah, p. 35; Grove's Dict. of Music and Musicians, passim; The Overture, 1890, pp. 97, 104.]

R. H. L.


ST. PAUL, JOHN de (1295?–1362), archbishop of Dublin, was probably a native of Owston in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where he subsequently endowed a chaplain to celebrate divine service for himself, his brother William, and other members of the family. He may have been a son of Thomas and brother of Robert de St. Paul, lord of Byram in the same Riding, on whose behalf he obtained from Edward II the remission of fines imposed on Robert for his adherence to Thomas of Lancaster (Parl. Writs, II. ii. 1387). He was possibly connected with Mary de St. Paul or St. Pol, daughter of the Count de St. Pol, who married Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, and frequently made John de St. Paul her attorney during her absence from England. The family probably came originally from Guienne, and it had many descendants settled in Yorkshire (cf. Testamenta Eboracensia, v. 26, &c.). Before 1330 John de St. Paul received a papal dispensation from the disabilities attending illegitimacy, but in 1339 the bishop of Winchester was directed by the pope to affirm St. Paul's legitimacy, ‘his father and mother having intermarried in the presence of their curate without publication of banns and not in the church’ (Bliss, Cal. Papal Letters, ii. 312, 546, 556). Born probably about 1295, he became a clerk in the chancery before 1318 (Cal. Close Rolls, 1318–23, pp. 106, 683). He was rector of ‘Asshebydavid’ in the diocese of Lincoln in 1329, and next year received a license to hold another bene-