Frederic Edward Weatherly (4 October 1848 – 7 September 1929) was an English lawyer, author, lyricist and broadcaster. He is estimated to have written the lyrics to at least 3,000 popular songs, among the best-known of which are the sentimental ballad Danny Boy set to the tune Londonderry Air, the religious "The Holy City", and the wartime song "Roses of Picardy".
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Frederic Weatherly was born and brought up in Portishead, Somerset, the eldest son in the large family of Frederick Weatherly (1820–1910), a medical doctor, and his wife, Julia Maria, née Ford (1823–98). He was educated at Hereford Cathedral School from 1859 to 1867, and won a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford in 1867.[1] Among his tutors was Walter Pater, who taught him about Italian art.[2] Weatherly entered three times for the Newdigate Prize for poetry, but without success.[2] In 1868, he helped out members of the Brasenose rowing team under Walter Bradford Woodgate who had practised for the Stewards' Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta without a cox. The race at the time was for coxed fours and Weatherly volunteered to start the race with them and immediately jump out of the boat. He did so and the team won but were disqualified.[2][3] Woodgate had made his point and the race was later changed to one for coxless fours. Weatherly graduated with a degree in Classics in 1871, and in the same year he married Anna Maria Hardwick (d. 1920), with whom he had a son and two daughters. Weatherly and his wife later lived apart.[1]
After leaving the university, Weatherly remained in Oxford, briefly working as a schoolmaster and then as a private tutor. He continued in that capacity until 1887 when he qualified as a barrister, practising first in London and then in the west of England. He remained active in the legal profession until the end of his life. The Times wrote of his dual career, "His fertility was extraordinary, and though it is easy to be contemptuous of his drawing-room lyrics, sentimental, humorous and patriotic, which are said to number about 3,000 altogether, it is certain that no practising barrister has ever before provided so much innocent pleasure."[2] He celebrated his golden jubilee as a songwriter in 1919, at a dinner given for him by publishers and composers with whom he had been associated over the past fifty years.[2] In his last years he was much in demand as a lecturer, broadcaster and after-dinner speaker.[2]
On 2 August 1923 Weatherly married Miriam Bryan, née Davies (d. 1941), widow of a well-known tenor, John Bryan.[2] He was made a King's Counsel, a senior barrister, in 1926. In the same year he published an autobiography, Piano and Gown. He died at his home, Bathwick Lodge, Bath, after a short illness on 7 September 1929, at the age of 80.[1] At his funeral in Bath Abbey, the Londonderry Air, to which he had written the well-known words, was played as a voluntary.[4]
The first of Weatherly's well-known works was the hymn "The Holy City", written in 1892 to music by the British composer Stephen Adams. The song includes the refrain "Jerusalem, Jerusalem!". He wrote the song "Danny Boy" in 1910, but it did not meet with much success. In 1912 his sister-in-law in America sent him an old Irish tune called "Londonderry Air", which he had never heard before. The tune matched his lyrics almost perfectly. He published the now-famous song in 1913. His ballad "Roses of Picardy", written in 1916 and set to music by Haydn Wood, was one of the most famous songs from World War I.
Of his huge output of songs, Weatherly listed a selection of 61 titles in his Who's Who entry. In addition to the above, they were: "Nancy Lee"; "The Midshipmite"; "Polly"; "They all love Jack"; "Jack’s Yarn"; "The Old Brigade"; "The Deathless Army"; "To the Front"; "John Bull"; "Darby and Joan"; "When We are Old and Grey"; "Auntie"; "The Chimney Corner"; "The Children’s Home"; "The Old Maids of Lee"; "The Men of Ware"; "The Devoted Apple"; "To-morrow will be Friday"; "Douglas Gordon"; "Sleeping Tide"; "The Star of Bethlehem"; "Beauty’s Eyes"; "In Sweet September"; "Bid me Good-bye"; "The Last Watch"; "London Bridge"; "The King’s Highway"; "Go to Sea"; "Veteran’s Song"; "Up from Somerset"; "Beyond the Dawn"; "Nirvana"; "Mifanwy"; "Sergeant of the Line"; "Stone-cracker John"; "Ailsa Mine"; "Old Black Mare"; "Coolan Dhu"; "Three for Jack"; "Bhoy I Love"; "The Blue Dragoons"; "At Santa Barbara"; "The Grenadier"; "Reuben Ranzo"; "Dinder Courtship"; "Friend o’Mine"; "When You Come Home"; "Little Road Home"; "Greenhills of Somerset"; "Danny Boy"; "As you pass by"; "Ships of my dreams"; "Why shouldn’t I?"; "When Noah Went-a-sailing"; "Time to go"; "Chumleigh Fair"; "Our Little Home"; "and "Little Lady of the Moon".[5]
Weatherly's prose publications include Wilton School, (1872); The Rudiments of Logic, Inductive and Deductive, (1879); Oxford Days: or How Ross got his Degree, (1879); Questions in Logic, Progressive and General, (1883) and Musical and Dramatic Copyright (1890), with Edward Cutler).[5] He published several collections of verse including Muriel and other Poems; Dresden China and other Songs; and Songs for Michael, 1927. Beatrix Potter's first signed illustrations were published in A Happy Pair, a book of verse written by Weatherly.[6]
Weatherly also worked in opera, making English translations of Pagliacci and Cavalleria rusticana, for Covent Garden[2] and writing the lyrics for the 1894 premiere of Mirette at the Savoy Theatre.[7]