# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Elwes, Gervase Henry

​ELWES, GERVASE HENRY [CARY-] (1866–1921), singer, born 15 November 1866 at Billing, Northamptonshire, was the elder son of Valentine Dudley Henry Cary-Elwes, of Billing Hall and Brigg Manor, Lincolnshire, by his second wife, Alice, daughter of the Hon. and Rev. Henry Ward, and niece of the third Viscount Bangor, of Castle Ward, North Ireland. He was educated at the Oratory School, Edgbaston, under Cardinal Newman, and at Woburn School under Lord Petre; and subsequently, from 1885 to 1888, at Christ Church, Oxford. Deciding to enter the diplomatic service, he went in 1889 to Munich for a year: there he studied German and French and also the violin. Returning to London he engaged in further study for his career, and in 1891, on the advice of Sir Nicholas O’Conor, took a post as honorary attaché to the British embassy at Vienna, where he spent a year; he also widened his musical knowledge by composition lessons, and became personally acquainted with Brahms. He then moved to Brussels, where he spent three years, incidentally studying singing with Demest. This was his last diplomatic appointment. Owing to his father’s failing health, he resigned his profession in 1895 and returned to England, settling down on his father’s Lincolnshire property and working at forestry. Five years afterwards he was advised by Sir Alfred Scott-Gatty to adopt singing as a career; and he studied in London with Henry Russell and for two winters with Bouhy in Paris, completing his technique under his chief master, Victor Beigel. He sang in public for the first time in Paris in December 1902, and in London in the spring of 1903. He owed to Miss May Wakefield (the organizer of the Westmorland festivals) and to Professor Johann Kruse some of his earliest important engagements. Subsequently he sang several times in Belgium and Holland, and also, in 1907, toured Germany with Miss Fanny Davies. He went three times to America, and on his third visit was killed (12 January 1921) by an accident at Boston (Backbay) station, either overbalancing himself or being struck by a moving train.
Elwes married in 1889 Lady Winefride of the eighth Earl of Denbigh, and had six Mary Elizabeth Feilding, fourth daughter sons and two daughters. In 1909 he succeeded, on his father’s death, to the family property: at the same time he discontinued the use of the name Cary which he had previously borne.
Some few months after his death, a ‘Gervase Elwes memorial fund’ was instituted by his friends and admirers, the income being utilized for the assistance of young musicians of talent and for the furtherance of various musical causes ​in which he had taken personal interest. On 14 December 1922 a portrait-bust of Elwes, the work of Malvina Hoffman and the gift of herself and other American admirers, was unveiled at Queen’s Hall, the scene of most of Elwes’s important London concerts.
For many years Elwes held a position of special prominence in the English musical world. A man of a personality both lofty and winning, he was in touch with an unusually large circle: a singer of great accomplishment and high artistic conscience, he always refused to compromise with unworthy music. His tenor voice was not in itself exceptional in power or sensuous charm, but it was more than adequate for all purposes of artistry; and his singing was marked by rare intellectual insight and, so to speak, spiritual dignity and feeling. He was especially at home with Bach and Brahms and in the title-rôle of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius (a work with which he had the most intimate sympathy): but he was by no means a narrow specialist and was always active in the encouragement of young composers.
[Private information; personal knowledge]
E. W.