person or book cover
Source: South African History Online (www.sahistory.org.za)
Luscombe Searelle Luscombe Searelle i(A44922 works by) (a.k.a. William Luscombe Searelle; William Searell)
Born: Established: 13 Sep 1853 Devon, Devon (County),
c
England,
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United Kingdom (UK),
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Western Europe, Europe,
; Died: Ceased: 18 Dec 1907 Surrey,
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England,
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c
United Kingdom (UK),
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Western Europe, Europe,

Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 1880 Departed from Australia: 1886
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BiographyHistory

(1853-1907) Composer, music director, pianist.

William Luscombe Searelle (originally Searell) was born in in Kingsteignton, Devonshire, England, but raised in New Zealand from the age of nine. As a child prodigy his piano playing and original compositions also attracted much attention in Sydney. In 1875 his comic opera The Wreck of the Pinafore was produced in London and two years later he toured his musical comedy Diamond Cut Diamond throughout Australasia with Hart and Searell's Operetta and Burletta Co. His most successful opera, Estrella (1883) became a smash hit in Australia when staged by the Montague-Turner Opera Co. in 1884. Others works from this period were Bobadil (1884) and Isidora (1885).

After being declared bankrupt in 1886 Searelle moved to South Africa, spending much of the next ten years there. He briefly he returned to New Zealand in 1891 to see his dying father, conducting three acclaimed performances of his cantata 'Australia' with the Christchurch Musical Society. During his South African years he owned a theatre in Johannesburg (which also burned down in 1892) and a coal mine, prospected unsuccessfully for tin in Swaziland and was hounded out of Johannesburg (and South Africa) for refusing to be conscripted into the Boer army. His refusal subsequently led to his financial ruin, once again.

Among his numerous compositions were popular songs such as 'The Bold Gen-d'armes' (1874), 'Love Me' (ca. 1880), 'Broken-Hearted' (1881), 'The Soudan March' (1885), 'The Babies on Our Block' (ca. 1890) and 'When From the Field Returning' (1906). He also wrote a travel book, Tales of the Transvaal (1896). His last opera, Mizpah, was produced in San Francisco in 1906. Searelle died in England of cancer on 18 December 1907 at East Molesey, Surrey.

[Source: Australian Variety Theatre Archive]

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • A number of secondary sources state that Luscombe Searelle was the pseudonym of Isaac Israel. However, a family history available from St. Paul's Anglican Church Cemetery at Papanui (New Zealand) shows that he was the son of Thomas and Harriet Searell, who regularly attended the Chudleigh Kneighton Anglican Church (United Kingdom).


  • A digitalised version of one of Searelle's songs, Where Thou Canst Rest, or, Ah! Love Me, but Love Me Well, originally recorded on an Edison cylinder in 1906, can be accessed from the University of California's Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project.


  • Entries connected with this record have been sourced from on-going historical research into Australian-written music theatre and film being conducted by Dr Clay Djubal.

Last amended 1 May 2012 11:23:45
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