CHAMBERS, Mary Radcliff

Mary Radcliff Chambers was a British singer, stage performer and composer active in the first half of the nineteenth century. She became known as “The Banker’s Daughter” after the financial collapse of her father’s banking business in the 1820s. Faced with the need to support her family, she turned professionally to the stage and concert platform, performing in London and elsewhere in Britain. Harvard Weblogs
Chambers was also active as a composer and published her own songs. Her best-documented collection is Simple Ballads, issued in 1845 and dedicated to Queen Victoria. The set contained seven songs, and surviving copies show that the collection circulated both in a standard edition and in a specially prepared presentation copy for the Queen. Harvard Weblogs
Among the songs associated with the collection is “Ay de mi Alhama,” based on the well-known Spanish-Moorish ballad about the fall of Alhama. Her work therefore reflects the nineteenth-century Romantic interest in historical, literary and exotic subjects. Amigos de Alhama
A benefit concert for Chambers was held at the King’s Concert Rooms, Hanover Square, London, on 7 May 1829, with aristocratic patronage that included members of the British royal circle.