Actor, singer and songwriter, 'Jack' Leumane wrote the lyrics for 'The Lambton Worm', first performed in a pantomine in the U.K. in 1867 and popularised in English music halls. He also created the role of Captain Harleigh in Stephens & Solomon's comic opera
Claude Duval at London's Olympic Theatre, August-October 1881, before joining the D'Oyly Carte opera company in 1881-1882.
In July 1887, as tenor C. H. Leumane, he made his first appearance in Australia with the Williamson Company as Prince Hilarion in the first Australian production of Princess Ida at the New Princess's Theatre, Melbourne. He later appeared in several other Gilbert & Sullivan productions in Australia. Other roles included Geoffrey Wilder in Cellier's Dorothy, and the lead role in Gounod's Faust in 1888. He played in 58 operas all told. In 1890 he toured in New Zealand but he returned to Australia, setting up the Leumane Opera Company and buying an apple orchard at Balhannah in South Australia. He retired from the stage in about 1903 and took up a vineyard at Lyndoch in the Barossa Valley. He died about ten years later after suffering some years of ill health.
