Mozart Lives Here

One of favourite stories about Robert Sparrow Smythe occured in 1878 and centers around a young musical prodigy named Ernest Hutcheson. This child was only seven years old and yet could sing, play the piano, violin and organ; compose his own music, and could play — according to his father, eight hundred compositions (one has to wonder where such an immense library of sheet music that could function as an engine for such a repertoire was housed). It was quite a boast. 

Young Ernest’s father was a blacksmith by trade, but also taught his child not only rudiments of music but the methods of two instruments, and instructed him in reading music and also, schooled him hin musical theory. It seemed mad, but the child could do all these things and the father was a Scot, whose own father was still in 1878 a leading Bandsman in Scotland who had taught all his children musicianship (“In my youth I was apprenticed as a blacksmith and fitter, but now I am a musician and pianoforte tuner; I teach piano-playing”).  The child’s mother was named Rosina in the press but was plain Rose Ann Brown, who had —as newpaper report later attested — never married the father, David Hutcheson, although Mr. Hutcheson had bought her a suitable ring and lived with her as if she were a married woman. It turned out that Hutcheson had a wife back in Scotland from whom was not divorced.

A dispute over the golden child arose, centered around the best way to make money from him. Hutcheson the father wanted to take him to America and put him under the business ‘acumen’ of P.T.Barnum, a scheme to which the mother was not partial. Discinclined to be left in Melbourne, separated from her child, and no doubt to be eventually, and conveniently forgotten, or included in any renumeration, she sought help.

James Smith, the local, and celebrated music critic was entranced with the talent of the child who had performed publicly, and had made a success of it. When it came time to consider the child’s future musical fate, Rosina Brown (aka. “Mrs Hutcheson”) made appeals to James Smith, no doubt airing her conern about her child being fobbed off to a “Yankee Speculator” as the next novelty. Smith, devoted to music as an artistic calling, sent for R.S.Smythe whose had heard the American “Bind Tom” and many others, and who was also greatly impressed at the great gift that the child possessed, and Smythe in turn brought along Mary Ellen Christian, a local contralto known to all, and of such sweet disposition that she might take in the child and mother under her care (which was, by proxy, Smythe’s care, as Miss Christian was his mistress). 

When Miss Christian relayed to Smythe that Rosina, in confidence, told her that Rosina wasn’t actually married to Hutcheson, Smythe suggested Rosina apply for a habeas corpus, resulting in the appearance of the boy before a Judge. Smythe had earlier “strongly, advised that he should be kept from performing in public for at least twelve months” in order to vouchsafe his development and to propely educate him, not just in music, but performance: two different skills. The parents had momentarily agreed before Mr. Hutcheson decided that taking him to America was a more prosperous idea. 

Once before the Judge, Mr. Hutcheson’s argument that the time, effort and financial care put into the boy was not enough to guarantee his blacksmith’s regency. Before the Judge, other details came out, such as when Rosina went to fetch the child from Mr. Godrey’s house (Mr. Hutcheson’s brother-in-law) Mr. Hutcheson said, “Rather than you shall have them, I'll put a knife through you!” He denied such threats of course, so one cannot tell if he was truly a greedy father or just hapless on how best to advance the coming career of the clever young child. Of certainty, is that touting him as a novelty was not going to give him a proper musical education that his talent required, nor protect him in his formative years — and his family was essentially destitute.

Sir William Stawell granted custody to Rosina Brown, as the child was illegitimate, and under the law she was automatically guardian unless her character had been of wicked, which it was not. Furthermore, Miss Christian, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, undertook to use her contacts to gain him access to the right people, if not outright entry. So the child was handed over to Robert Sparrow Smythe and his wife Amelia Bailey when they arrived in a carriage at Mr. Godfrey’s (what an odd arrangement), in addition to his siblings, and there I lose track of the family as a whole, except for Mr. Hutcheson, who, twenty years later was declaring bankruptcy in South Melbourne, as he had in 1878 (it turns out he was banking on the money that would come from his son’s American concerts).

Miss Christian, and the Smythes kept their promise; although they could not personally attend to the care, they saw to it that some good people were engaged, and that several fund raising concerts were held to help the famil and evenutaully to send young Ernest to the Leipzig Conservatory, where history records that he entered aged fourteen, studying under Carl Reinecke, Bernhard Stavenhagen, and Bruno Zwintscher. His career centered around London and Berlin until the shadows of World War One cast its panic over Europe and he emigrated, ironically, to America where he ended up at Julliard in the faculty, and as Dean in 1926. I couldn’t find his father’s death in Melbourne and I hope they reconciled; the newpaper article from 1878 noted that the boy was devoted to his father and much broken up, and seemed not to be so attached to the mother.

But my favourite party of this story was a consquence of James’s Smith belief in spiritualism, and his entrenched conviction that Ernest Hutcheson was the reincarnation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. When the boy went to live with the Smythe family at “Highgate” — their house and land in Deepdene —some local ruffians painted on Smythe’s large brick wall:—

“MOZART LIVES HERE”

A fitting end to a crazy little drama.