9. Charles Incledon (1763–1826)

He played the part of Selim, one of the Sultan’s male slaves (eununchs) in A Day in Turkey. A leading tenor for thirty years from 1790 he was a soloist in the first performance in London of Haydn’s The Creation (1800). Following four years in the navy, he began his singing career with a role in Arnold’s Castle of Andalusia. He sang with the Bath-Bristol theatre company, and was popular at Vauxhall Gardens. The first role created for him was Shield’s The Woodman (1791). Roger Fiske notes that he had a beautiful voice, but was a clumsy actor, with a conceited personality. His impassioned performances of nautical and sentimental ballads exemplified an English style of singing.

Stiple engraving by [William?] Ridley, after Mather Brown, Mr. Charles Incledon (London: Vernor & Hood, 1801).
RCM Centre for Performance History, 88A3