Fred Billington

Fred Billington (1 July 1854 – 2 November 1917) was an English baritone singer and actor born in Lockwood, near Huddersfield, Yorkshire. He is best remembered for his decades of work with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, where he became a fixture in the touring repertory performing the baritone roles of the Savoy Operas, many of which had been originated on the London stage by Rutland Barrington. Though he rarely appeared in the West End, Billington built a devoted following among provincial audiences throughout England and beyond. His career with D'Oyly Carte began in 1879 and continued, with only brief interruptions, until his death in 1917.

Billington's earliest professional work took place in the English provinces, where he performed at penny readings, inexpensive entertainments aimed at working-class audiences. He joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1879, initially playing the Boatswain in H.M.S. Pinafore in the London suburbs alongside the one-act companion piece Antony and Cleopatra, a French farce adapted by Charles Selby. He soon graduated to the larger Pinafore role of Dick Deadeye on provincial tour. Also in 1879, Billington created the role of the Sergeant of Police in the single performance of The Pirates of Penzance staged in Paignton in December of that year, given the day before the opera's New York premiere in order to establish Gilbert and Sullivan's British copyright. Early in his career, reviewers occasionally noted a tendency to sing flat, but such criticism ceased as he matured, and he became particularly noted for his diction.

Through the early 1880s, Billington steadily expanded his repertoire within the D'Oyly Carte touring companies. In 1880 he added the Notary and later Doctor Daly in The Sorcerer, and in 1881 and 1882 he took on the Pirate King in Pirates of Penzance and Captain Corcoran in Pinafore. In 1882 and 1883 he toured in Farnie and Planquette's operetta Rip Van Winkle, playing Derrick von Slous and Captain Hendrich Hudson. He also performed Private Willis in Iolanthe and King Hildebrand in the tour of Princess Ida in 1884. By 1885 he had added the Learned Judge in Trial by Jury and Pooh-Bah in The Mikado to his growing list of parts.

In August 1885, Billington traveled to New York for the American production of The Mikado, appearing alongside George Thorne as Ko-Ko, Geraldine Ulmar as Yum-Yum, and Courtice Pounds as Nanki-Poo. Returning to England in May 1886, he performed Corcoran and Pooh-Bah in the provinces and then in Germany and Austria. In 1887 he returned to England to rehearse the new Gilbert and Sullivan opera Ruddigore, gave two matinee performances as Sir Despard Murgatroyd at the Savoy Theatre — his Broadway-equivalent West End credit — and then sailed again for New York to play Sir Despard in the American cast, marking his Broadway appearance that year. Subsequent tours took in Ruddigore, The Mikado, and Patience, in which he played Colonel Calverley, and he also briefly substituted for Barrington as Sir Despard at the Savoy.

During 1888 and 1889, Billington toured in multiple roles including Sergeant Meryll and later Wilfred Shadbolt in The Yeomen of the Guard. He briefly departed D'Oyly Carte to play Bragadoccio in Edward Jakobowski and Harry Paulton's comic opera Paola in Edinburgh, a cast that also featured Leonora Braham. In 1890, Rupert D'Oyly Carte selected Billington among a group of performers sent to strengthen the New York cast of The Gondoliers, where he played Don Alhambra. He subsequently returned to Britain for further touring in The Gondoliers, The Mikado, and Yeomen of the Guard.

From the close of 1890 until his death, Billington remained with D'Oyly Carte's principal touring company with only rare breaks. His regular roles during this long final phase included the Learned Judge, Doctor Daly, Dick Deadeye, the Sergeant of Police, Archibald Grosvenor in Patience, Private Willis, King Hildebrand, Pooh-Bah, Wilfred Shadbolt, and Don Alhambra. When newer works entered the touring repertory, he took on additional parts: Punka in The Nautch Girl in 1892, King Paramount in Utopia Limited from 1898 to 1900, and Sultan Mahmoud in The Rose of Persia from 1900 to 1901. In 1891 he played Pooh-Bah in a command performance of The Mikado at Balmoral Castle before Queen Victoria and members of the royal family.

Billington's two West End engagements in the 1890s both involved standing in for or succeeding Barrington at the Savoy. In 1896 he appeared there as Pooh-Bah, and in early 1897 he created his second original role in a Savoy opera, King Mopolio VII, in F.C. Burnand and Alexander Mackenzie's His Majesty. Illness forced him to leave the Savoy in April 1897, preventing him from appearing as Shadbolt in that year's revival of Yeomen of the Guard, a role that went instead to Henry Lytton. After a lengthy convalescence, he rejoined the touring company and remained there for the remainder of his life.

Billington died on 2 November 1917 in London. He had traveled from Cambridge, where the company was then performing, to have lunch at the Liverpool Street Hotel with Rupert Carte, who informed him during the meal that the current tour would be his last. After Carte departed, Billington remained at the hotel conversing with a waiter. He then rose to leave, remarking that it was time to return to Cambridge, and collapsed and died at the hotel exit. His funeral was held at Highgate Cemetery on 8 November 1917. He had no surviving family, being a bachelor whose brother had died at Lockwood in 1882. Courtice Pounds and George Thorne were among the chief mourners.