Mary Shakespeare Mary Shakespeare Mary Shakespeare, née Arden, (c. 1537–1608) was the mother of William Shakespeare. She was the daughter of Wilmcote gentleman farmer Robert Arden, a cadet of the Arden family prominent in Warwickshire since before the Norman Conquest. She was the youngest of eight daughters, and when her father died in 1556 she inherited land at Snitterfield and Wilmcote from her father as a dowry. The house was left to her stepmother Agnes Hill. Richard Shakespeare, the father of John Shakespeare, was a tenant farmer on land owned by her father in Snitterfield. As the daughter of Richard's landlord, she
William Shakespeare (tenor) William Shakespeare (tenor) William Shakespeare (16 June 1849 – 1 November 1931) was an English tenor, pedagogue, and composer. William Shakespeare was born in Croydon England on 16 June 1849. He studied in London, at the Royal Academy of Music with William Sterndale Bennett. Winning the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1871, he travelled to Leipzig to study with composer, pianist, conductor, and pedagogue Carl Reinecke, but soon left Leipzig for Milan, to study under the guidance of the singing teacher Francesco Lamperti. He appeared in England once again as a tenor in 1875. In 1878, he was appointed as a professor