Mabel Batten

Mabel Veronica "Ladye" Hatch Batten (née Hatch; 1856–1916) was a British composer and singer of lieder.

Life and career

Early life and education Mabel Hatch was born in Calcutta to a well-connected military family. She was of Anglo-Irish descent, but spent much of her childhood in India due to the British occupation.

She studied harmony and composition in Dresden, Germany, and Bruges, Belgium. She was an accomplished singer, pianist and guitar player. They had one daughter, the painter and film maker Lady Cara Harris. She was also friends with composer Ethel Smyth and fellow patroness Winnaretta Singer, princesse de Polignac. After Batten was widowed, she went to live with Hall in Cadogan Square. Batten is credited with nurturing Hall's writing career and with recognizing her talent "even in the egg."

In 1915 Hall met Batten's cousin Una Troubridge (1887–1963). When Batten died the following year, Troubridge took care of a defeated Hall and in 1917 they went to live together.

Batten is buried in a vault in the Circle of Lebanon on the western side of Highgate Cemetery in London, and Hall chose to be buried at the entrance of the crypt.

Portraits Mabel Batten's portraits were taken by John Singer Sargent and Edward John Poynter. After Batten's death in 1916, the Sargent painting was bequeathed to Hall, who hung it in the hope she now shared with Troubridge.

Works Batten published nine songs during her lifetime, but wrote many more that remain unpublished.

"The Love Song of Har Dyal," 1892, text by Rudyard Kipling Two Songs, 1885, text by the earl of Lytton "The Queen's Last Ride," text by Ella Wheeler Wilcox