opportunity for a better life came in 1894 when Thomas, the oldest son, who had left home the year before to become a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral, auditioned to become a tenor lay clerk in the Chapel Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford. According to the college records, he was one of sixty applicants but the only one to be offered a job.
The choir was made up of what they termed “academical clerks” (undergraduates at the college who sang until they graduated) and “lay clerks” (professional musicians who might have other work to top up their income). Because of the post the whole Woodward family left West Bromwich and moved to a house in Cowley Road, Oxford. After the industrial midlands, life in the university town offered a literal breath of fresh air along with inspiring architecture and a fascinating sense of history.
It’s likely that Woodward left school at around the time of the move and may have done some casual work, but, like his brother Tom, he wanted to make music his career. The Woodwards were a musical family. Relatives on his father’s side had been church organists, choirmasters, and players in professional orchestras. In 1900 Woodward took exams set by the Royal College of Music in London that would qualify him to teach music. With a pass mark set at 75 percent, he passed and was awarded a licentiate as a performer of the cello. In the next year’s census he described himself as “a musician,” meaning that at the age of twenty-one this was how he earned his living.
His years in Oxford are not documented beyond a passing comment by the Oxford Times that “he appeared in several solos and string quartets, notably with the Misses Price and Mr H. M. Dowson.” The Misses Price, who were violinists, have been lost to history, but Henry Martin Dowson is remembered because he was married to Rosina Filippi, one of the best-known stage actresses of the time. He lived in Iffley, a village outside of Oxford, played the viola, and was a brewer.
Rosina Filippi came from Venice, where her father, Filippo Filippi, was a celebrated writer and music critic. Her mother, Vaneri Filippi, was a French singer and professor of singing at the Milan Conservatoire. Rosina had wanted to be an opera singer, but her voice didn’t develop sufficiently and she turned to acting. She became a popular figure in the London theater, involved herself in tutoring younger actors, and was an author. One of her greatest achievements was adapting Jane Austen for the stage for the first time. Her book Duologues and Scenes from the Novels of Jane Austen Arranged and Adapted for Drawing-Room Performance was published in 1895, and in March 1901 her production The Bennets (“A Play without a Plot adopted from Jane Austen’s Novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’”) was premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre. The critic from the Times wasn’t impressed: “Is there not something of a profanation in throwing the glare of the footlights upon the art of Miss Austen, so dainty, so demure, so private and confidential?” he asked. “Is there not something of callousness in abandoning to the noisy traffic of the stage those exquisitely discreet duologues which are properly to be enjoyed at leisure, word by word, in little sips?”
Dowson certainly performed around Oxford and was known by the musicians who belonged to the Oxford University Music Club (later to become the Oxford University Music Society). Woodward was becoming familiar with a more cultured world than he would have been exposed to if he had stayed in West Bromwich. Rosina Filippi was a well-connected woman who played opposite many of the giants of British theater and by playing with her husband Woodward would have been introduced to that layer of society.
In photographs John Wesley Woodward looks neat, solid, and dependable. He’s broad shouldered and well groomed with a carefully waxed mustache. His spectacles are wire rimmed and in some photos he instead wears a
The choir was made up of what they termed “academical clerks” (undergraduates at the college who sang until they graduated) and “lay clerks” (professional musicians who might have other work to top up their income). Because of the post the whole Woodward family left West Bromwich and moved to a house in Cowley Road, Oxford. After the industrial midlands, life in the university town offered a literal breath of fresh air along with inspiring architecture and a fascinating sense of history.
It’s likely that Woodward left school at around the time of the move and may have done some casual work, but, like his brother Tom, he wanted to make music his career. The Woodwards were a musical family. Relatives on his father’s side had been church organists, choirmasters, and players in professional orchestras. In 1900 Woodward took exams set by the Royal College of Music in London that would qualify him to teach music. With a pass mark set at 75 percent, he passed and was awarded a licentiate as a performer of the cello. In the next year’s census he described himself as “a musician,” meaning that at the age of twenty-one this was how he earned his living.
His years in Oxford are not documented beyond a passing comment by the Oxford Times that “he appeared in several solos and string quartets, notably with the Misses Price and Mr H. M. Dowson.” The Misses Price, who were violinists, have been lost to history, but Henry Martin Dowson is remembered because he was married to Rosina Filippi, one of the best-known stage actresses of the time. He lived in Iffley, a village outside of Oxford, played the viola, and was a brewer.
Rosina Filippi came from Venice, where her father, Filippo Filippi, was a celebrated writer and music critic. Her mother, Vaneri Filippi, was a French singer and professor of singing at the Milan Conservatoire. Rosina had wanted to be an opera singer, but her voice didn’t develop sufficiently and she turned to acting. She became a popular figure in the London theater, involved herself in tutoring younger actors, and was an author. One of her greatest achievements was adapting Jane Austen for the stage for the first time. Her book Duologues and Scenes from the Novels of Jane Austen Arranged and Adapted for Drawing-Room Performance was published in 1895, and in March 1901 her production The Bennets (“A Play without a Plot adopted from Jane Austen’s Novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’”) was premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre. The critic from the Times wasn’t impressed: “Is there not something of a profanation in throwing the glare of the footlights upon the art of Miss Austen, so dainty, so demure, so private and confidential?” he asked. “Is there not something of callousness in abandoning to the noisy traffic of the stage those exquisitely discreet duologues which are properly to be enjoyed at leisure, word by word, in little sips?”
Dowson certainly performed around Oxford and was known by the musicians who belonged to the Oxford University Music Club (later to become the Oxford University Music Society). Woodward was becoming familiar with a more cultured world than he would have been exposed to if he had stayed in West Bromwich. Rosina Filippi was a well-connected woman who played opposite many of the giants of British theater and by playing with her husband Woodward would have been introduced to that layer of society.
In photographs John Wesley Woodward looks neat, solid, and dependable. He’s broad shouldered and well groomed with a carefully waxed mustache. His spectacles are wire rimmed and in some photos he instead wears a
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