Essie Ackland

Essie Ackland (27 March 189614 February 1975) was an Australian contralto who performed ballads, songs and in oratorio and concerts. At one time her recordings were more in demand than those of any other female singer in the world. She also recorded Gilbert and Sullivan with Sir Malcolm Sargent, but never sang in standard operas.

Early life

Essie Adele Ackland was born in Sydney. She studied at the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music under Roland Foster, and had further training under Joseph Bradley and Emily Marks. She performed locally and in Queensland, and was chosen to accompany the Belgian cellist Jean Gerardy on his 1923 tour of Australasia, with encouragement from Dame Clara Butt and Henri Verbrugghen. In 1925 she left for London, where in 1926 she married her former fellow student from Sydney, the baritone Reginald Morphew. They chose to keep their careers separate, seldom performing together, and remained married until his death. For her first Sydney concert on 13 March 1937, the demand for seats outstripped the Conservatorium's capacity, so the concert was moved to the Sydney Town Hall. She was accompanied by the violinist Ernest Llewellyn and the pianist Raymond Lambert. She toured her native land for four months, and a further two months in New Zealand. During World War II she sang over 1,300 times in hospitals, air raid shelters, army camps and factories throughout Great Britain, and entertained Australian soldiers at her London home. Ackland returned from overseas and toured Australia again in 1948, accompanied by Geoffrey Parsons. On 13 June 1948, she sang with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Goossens. The Bulletin reported in September that after finishing her interstate tour for the ABC with a matinee in Sydney Town Hall and a recital at Wollongong she gave a series of concerts in the northern coalfields commissioned by the Joint Coal Board, in which Adelaide violinist Carmel Hakendorf and pianist Geoffrey Parsons accompanied her. They performed in three other states in Brisbane, Toowoomba, Lismore, Murwillumbah, Broken Hill, Adelaide, Mount Gambier, and Kalgoorlie.

Ackland retired in 1949. She lived at Gosford before her death in February 1975 aged 78 in Mosman, a Sydney suburb. She was cremated.