Musical theatre composer and impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber set out to see if he had show business in his family tree when he appeared on Who Do You Think You Are? <\/p>
Andrew Lloyd Webber was born on 22 March 1948 in Kensington, London, the elder son of William Lloyd Webber, a composer and organist, and Jean Hermione Johnstone, a violinist and pianist. His younger brother, Julian Lloyd Webber, is a world-renowned solo cellist. He is best-known as the renowned composer behind smash-hit musicals such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat<\/em>, Jesus Christ Superstar<\/em>, Cats<\/em> and The Phantom of the Opera<\/em>. He served as a member of the House of Lords from 1997 to 2017.<\/p>\n At the start of his episode of Who Do You Think You Are?<\/em><\/a>, Andrew says he wants to find showbiz forebears who share his love of \u201cmusic and art and architecture\u201d. He begins by tracing his mother\u2019s family line, which turns out to be far posher than Andrew ever expected. Much is known about the life of his 4x great uncle, General Sir Peregrine Maitland (1777\u20131854), a soldier who played a key role during the Duke of Wellington\u2019s defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo<\/a> in June 1815.<\/p>\n Tracing back this part of his family line, Andrew discovers his 12x great grandmother is Katherine Willoughby (1519\u201380), an heiress who as a teenager became the Duchess of Suffolk. Forthright and resilient, she was a powerful figure in the court of Henry VIII \u2013 and also something of a joker, who famously named her pet dog Gardiner after a bishop she disliked.<\/p>\n During the reign of Mary Tudor, Katherine and her second husband, Richard Bertie (1516\u201382), someone she married for love despite his being seen as her social inferior because he was a \u201cgentleman usher\u201d, were forced into exile because of their Protestantism. The couple returned when Elizabeth I took the throne and Andrew, with his enthusiasm for architecture, is delighted to have found an ancestor whose home was Grimsthorpe Castle, one of England\u2019s greatest country houses.<\/p>\n Researching his father\u2019s side of the family, Andrew early on encounters musical relatives. His grandfather, William CH Webber, made his living as a plumber in Battersea, but was a good enough singer to have been part of a choir at George VI\u2019s coronation. Andrew also researches his 2x great grandfather, Henry S Simmonds, a missionary who worked among London\u2019s poorest \u2013 \u201ca real working class hero\u201d. Henry also wrote All About Battersea<\/em>, the first architectural guide to the area.<\/p>\n Further back in his father\u2019s line, Andrew finally discovers the showbiz forbears he\u2019s been longing to locate. His 5x great grandfather, Henry, had the distinctive surname Magito, a Dutch<\/a> name by way of France. In the Netherlands, Andrew discovers he is descended from an extended family of musicians and entrepreneurial show-people, whose travelling Great Italian Show was the 18th century<\/a> equivalent of musical theatre. The troupe included a \u201crope dancer\u201d, Peter Magito, who sometimes performed in skates.<\/p>\n Even more extraordinary is the fact that Henry\u2019s brother was, like Andrew\u2019s sibling, Julian, a renowned cellist. Alexis Magito was a composer and six of his sonatas have survived. At King\u2019s College Library in Cambridge, Dr James Clements shows Andrew a copy of an engraving of Alexis. The cellist is pictured with other musicians, including the violinist Pieter Hellendaal, another whose work is still played and studied.<\/p>\n After sharing the results of his research with Julian, Andrew reflects that he\u2019s proud to be descended from a line of \u201cwonderful, wonderful people\u201d.<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Musical theatre composer and impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber set out to see if he had show business in his family tree when he appeared on Who Do You Think You Are? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":25185,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"3"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2023\/06\/andrew-lloyd-webber-on-who-do-you-think-you-are-everything-you-need-to-know-scaled.jpg",2560,1708,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2023\/06\/andrew-lloyd-webber-on-who-do-you-think-you-are-everything-you-need-to-know-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2023\/06\/andrew-lloyd-webber-on-who-do-you-think-you-are-everything-you-need-to-know-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2023\/06\/andrew-lloyd-webber-on-who-do-you-think-you-are-everything-you-need-to-know-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2023\/06\/andrew-lloyd-webber-on-who-do-you-think-you-are-everything-you-need-to-know-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2023\/06\/andrew-lloyd-webber-on-who-do-you-think-you-are-everything-you-need-to-know-1536x1025.jpg",1536,1025,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/36\/2023\/06\/andrew-lloyd-webber-on-who-do-you-think-you-are-everything-you-need-to-know-2048x1366.jpg",2048,1366,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Musical theatre composer and impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber set out to see if he had show business in his family tree when he appeared on Who Do You Think You Are?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/25184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/wdytya\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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