Early Life

Harriet Kendall was born in Bowness-on-Windermere in April 1857; her parents were George and Eleanor Kendall, living at Belmont House, Bowness.

She entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1876 where she trained under Manuel Garcia and developed a contralto voice. As an elocutionist, she studied under Walter Lacy and Genevieve Ward.

Career

Harriet Kendall was an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, awarded in 1932, and an Associate of the Royal College of Music awarded in 1893 for an external diploma in singing teaching. She achieved the Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music in singing performance in 1893. She was also a member of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, and the Royal Society of Literature.

She was lecturer in Elocution at King’s College and had also been teaching music at the High School, Park Road, St Margarets.

She performed dramatic and musical recitals in London and in the provinces. She composed her own songs, such as the ballads ‘A Game of Tennis’ (1886) and ‘Richmond Park’. ‘A Song of Remembrance’ (1892) used Christina Rosetti’s poem ‘Remember’..

Harriet Kendall also appeared in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at the Royalty Theatre in a production by Mrs Fairfax. Later she performed scenes from Shakespeare’s plays, and for Shakespeare’s birthday celebration in 1930. Part of her poem on Shakespeare – ‘We who are forever debtors bring our homage to thy immortality’ – was placed on the official wreath that was laid on Shakespeare’s tomb.

She advocated the setting up of examination standards for elocution and was supported by Dr Wace, Principal of King’s College, London from 1883 to 1897.

Poetry

Her book, ‘A Lakeland Story’ was published in 1888 and her book of poems, ‘Synariss, and Other Poems for Recitation’, was published in 1894. Her poems were also published in newspapers and magazines

Personal Life

8 Park Road

Harriet Kendall lived at ‘Elsinore’ 8 Park Road, St Margarets, East Twickenham, for almost 50 years with her friend Miss Eleanor Piggott and they travelled widely in Europe together. Dr Wace officiated at her marriage to Arthur MacDonald, a surveyor in Tring, at St George’s Hanover Square London, on 4 September 1912. She died in a nursing home in Eastbourne on 16 September 1933, and was buried in Richmond Cemetery.

On her grave is her poem:

“Life is made up of heart throbs, not of years,

We have our little hour, and then we go

Into the shadowland, with hopes, not fears,

To bravely pierce the dark, it must be so.”

On her grave stands an angel holding a torch with the words “Look Up. The torch of truth is the Light of Heaven. Simply to thy Cross I cling.”

She left her husband an income in her will until he remarried and the remainder to her friend, Eleanor Piggott, who died 31 March 1937, and is buried in the same grave.

Legacy

She founded a Harriet Kendall prize, a gold medal for elocution. Prizes were awarded from 1934 to 1962.

Further Reading

A Lakeland Story. (1888). Illustrated by Tom Taylor, Alfred Woodruff. London:  J. Walker & Co

Synariss, and Other Poems for Recitation. (1894). London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.