John Philip Deane (1796-1849) is described by Graeme Skinner as a professor of music, violinist, composer, and music retailer and 'one of the most important early colonial musicians in VDL (TAS) and NSW'. Deane and his wife Rosalie (nee Smith) and two eldest children arrived in Hobart-Town in June 1822. Deane was active in music and the theatre in Hobart-Town in the 1820s and 1830s. Graeme Skinner notes that Rosalie Deane 'took over from her husband around 1828 as proprietor of Deane’s Circulating Library (also the Hobart Town Circulating Library) ... [and] was Hobart’s leading general bookseller in the late 1820s and early 1830s, and also a music seller.'
According to Philip Parsons and Victoria Chance in the Concise Companion to Theatre in Australia. Deane was also a theatrical manager and entrepreneur. He 'presented concerts ending with short plays' in the Argyle Rooms in Hobart Town and later he 'opened three nights a week in Hobart Town as the Theatre Royal. His first production was the Bushrangers, which he had commissioned from Henry Melville.' (83)
Deane was jailed for debt in 1835 and in April 1836 the family moved to Sydney. For some of his time in Sydney Deane was the conductor or leader of the orchestra at the Theatre Royal and, subsequently, the Royal Victoria Theatre. He returned briefly to Hobart Town in 1844 but returned to Sydney in 1845. His six sons, four of whom joined him in his 22 September 1838 benefit at the Royal Victoria Theatre, and one daughter were all musicians.
Source: Skinner, Graeme. Austral Harmony : Music and Musicians in Colonial Australia. Web. 24 June 2014; Parsons, Philip with Chance, Victoria (eds). Concise Companion to Theatre in Australia (Paddington: Currency Press, 1997)
