William F. Hooley

William F. Hooley (16 April 1861 – 12 October 1918) was a British-born American bass singer and pioneer recording artist who was popular as a solo singer, as a monologist, and as a member of several of the most successful vocal groups of the early twentieth century, including The Haydn Quartet and The American Quartet.

Biography Hooley was born in Whitechapel, London, England, to a family of Irish origin. Although his son claimed that William was born in Cork, Ireland, a suggestion repeated elsewhere, the claim is disproved by other evidence. He moved to the US as a child, and lived at first in Lynn, Massachusetts, later moving to Nyack, New York.

He sang in church choirs, glee clubs and operettas from the 1880s, and from about 1896 began recording as part of the Edison Quartet, with John Bieling, Samuel Holland Rous (who performed as S. H. Dudley), and Jere Mahoney. After Mahoney was replaced by John Scantlebury Macdonald, who used the pseudonym Harry Macdonough, they took the name The Haydn Quartet in order to record for companies other than Edison. Hooley was also, for a short time, the manager of the Excelsior Phonograph Company and then the president of the American Phonograph Company, makers of phonograph cylinders. However, neither venture was successful. From 1914, Hooley also recorded as part of the Orpheus Quartet, which included Harry Macdonough, Reinald Werrenrath, and Lambert Murphy; and as a member of the Heidelberg Quintet, which comprised the four members of the American Quartet together with counter-tenor Will Oakland. at the age of 57.