Frederic Weatherly - Biography

Biography

Frederic Weatherly was born and brought up in Portishead, Somerset, the eldest son in the large family of Frederick Weatherly (1820–1910), a medical doctor, and his wife, Julia Maria, née Ford (1823–98). He was educated at Hereford Cathedral School from 1859 to 1867, and won a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford in 1867. Among his tutors was Walter Pater, who taught him about Italian art. Weatherly entered three times for the Newdigate Prize for poetry, but without success. In 1868, he helped out members of the Brasenose rowing team under Walter Bradford Woodgate who had practised for the Stewards' Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta without a cox. The race at the time was for coxed fours and Weatherly volunteered to start the race with them and immediately jump out of the boat. He did so and the team won but were disqualified. Woodgate had made his point and the race was later changed to one for coxless fours. Weatherly graduated with a degree in Classics in 1871, and in the same year he married Anna Maria Hardwick (d. 1920), with whom he had a son and two daughters. Weatherly and his wife later lived apart.

After leaving the university, Weatherly remained in Oxford, briefly working as a schoolmaster and then as a private tutor. He continued in that capacity until 1887 when he qualified as a barrister, practising first in London and then in the west of England. He remained active in the legal profession until the end of his life. The Times wrote of his dual career, "His fertility was extraordinary, and though it is easy to be contemptuous of his drawing-room lyrics, sentimental, humorous and patriotic, which are said to number about 3,000 altogether, it is certain that no practising barrister has ever before provided so much innocent pleasure." He celebrated his golden jubilee as a songwriter in 1919, at a dinner given for him by publishers and composers with whom he had been associated over the past fifty years. In his last years he was much in demand as a lecturer, broadcaster and after-dinner speaker.

On 2 August 1923 Weatherly married Miriam Bryan, née Davies (d. 1941), widow of a well-known tenor, John Bryan. He was made a King's Counsel, a senior barrister, in 1926. In the same year he published an autobiography, Piano and Gown. He died at his home, Bathwick Lodge, Bath, after a short illness on 7 September 1929, at the age of 80. At his funeral in Bath Abbey, the Londonderry Air, to which he had written the well-known words, was played as a voluntary.