Arabella Goddard

Arabella Goddard (12 January 18366 April 1922) was an English pianist.

Early years She was born and died in France. Her parents, Thomas Goddard, an heir to a Salisbury cutlery firm, and Arabella née Ingles, were part of an English community of expatriates living in Saint-Servan near Saint-Malo, Brittany. She remained very proud of her French background all her life, and spiced her conversation with French phrases.

At age six she was sent to Paris to study with Friedrich Kalkbrenner. She was feted as a child prodigy and played for the French royal family and Frédéric Chopin and George Sand (she would later also play for Queen Victoria).

She was one of the first pianists to play recitals from memory, although her concerto appearances were with the score in front. of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Java. In June 1874, while returning to Townsville, Queensland, from Java, her ship, the RMS Flintshire, ran aground on to the Great Barrier Reef off Townsville, and she had to spend a night in an open boat in torrential rain with the trapeze artist Charles Blondin, who was also arriving for an Australian tour. In October 1875, she appeared in New York City with Thérèse Tietjens.

In England, George Bernard Shaw was struck by her ability to play the most complex pieces. He described Teresa Carreño as "a second Arabella Goddard". She retired from performing in 1880.

Later career She was appointed a teacher at the Royal College of Music in 1883, its first year of operation.

A number of composers dedicated pieces to her, including William Sterndale Bennett's Piano Sonata in A-flat, Op. 46 "The Maid of Orleans". She herself composed a small number of piano pieces, including a suite of six waltzes.

Personal life After the birth of her two sons Henry and Charles, she separated from her husband, who died in 1885. She died at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, on 6 April 1922, aged 86.

Broadwood piano Goddard took an iron framed Broadwood piano, built for the Vienna Exposition, on her international tours. It was involved in the RMS Flintshire stranding on 26 June 1874, where the ship's captain used the piano to ballast the ship, in a successful attempt to prevent the vessel from tipping over. The ship was refloated and the piano made its way around Australia. However Goddard was involved in a few arguments during her tour, and at one point the piano was held hostage by the disgruntled manager of the Sydney theatre in which she got into a dispute, in August 1874.

The piano then made an appearance in an auction in London in 1875, when it was purchased by the industrialist Lord Armstrong. The cost was 250 guineas, equivalent now to £26,000 in 2025 terms. This extraordinary sum was perhaps due to Lord Armstrong being something of a fan of Goddard. The piano was installed at Lord Armstrong's home in Cragside, near Rothbury in Northumberland. At some point after 1901 the piano left Cragside. The piano was placed in a auction in 2006, this time for a much lower sum, £85. The new owners realised the historic significance of the piano, and gave it to the National Trust, who now run Cragside. The piano was reinstated in Cragside's drawing room in July 2025, 150 years after its first appearance there, and in working order, The piano is now on show to the public.