Lucy Chambers

Lucy Chambers (3 July 1834 – 14 June 1894) was an Australian contralto, one of the first to achieve any kind of success in Europe, where she was dubbed "the Australian nightingale". She became a successful teacher of singing, dubbed by one critic "the Marchesi of the Antipodes". (c. 1796 – 1 April 1854), a solicitor and onetime associate of William Charles Wentworth She had a good musical education, first studying pianoforte to an advanced level before taking singing lessons under Mrs Maria Logan, organist at St Andrew's, who toured Australia in 1854, and recommended she undertook further studies in London. In January 1862

She remained with the company for three years, then took up teaching, with rooms at 6 Albert Street, Melbourne. Successful pupils include Amy Sherwin, Marie St Claire, Ada Gardiner (Ida Osborne), Alice Dunning Lingard, Colbourne Baber, Violet Varley, Edith Moore, Florence Young, Florence Esdaile, Cicely Staunton, Lucinda Blackham (sister of cricketer Jack Blackham), and another, following losses due to the banking collapse, on 18 October 1893. This concert was well supported by an appreciative audience.

Last days Around Christmas 1893 she visited her sister, Mrs Gilmore, in Launceston, Tasmania, and while there contracted influenza, from which she never fully recovered, and died from a heart attack.

Recognition A song, "The Old Refrain" by Alfred Moul and E. Norman Gunnison, and published in 1880, was dedicated to Chambers.