Who started off selling newspapers, became the First Lord of the Admiralty in the 1870s and was immortalised in Gilbert and Sullivan's HMS Pinafore?
First Lord of the Admiralty 1800 and 1912 included": From 1 April 1964 Elizabeth II assumed the title of Lord High Admiral. Ministerial responsibility for the Royal Navy was transferred to the newly created Secretary of State for Defence. The "Radical" First Lord, and a major character, in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera "H.M.S. Pinafore" (1878), is Sir Joseph Henry Porter, KCB. W. S. Gilbert wrote to Arthur Sullivan he did not intend to portray the real-life then First Lord, the bookseller and newsagent W. H. Smith, a Conservative, although some of the public, including Prime Minister Disraeli (who later referred to Smith as "Pinafore
The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan is pleased by the acclaim that he receives for the music to the short comic opera "Trial by Jury", a collaboration with dramatist W. S. Gilbert. Grace leaves him, telling him that he is wasting his musical gifts on triviality, foreshadowing criticism from the musical establishment that will follow Sullivan for the rest of his career. Still wrestling with this dilemma, Sullivan joins Gilbert and the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte in a partnership to create more light operas. Their subsequent operas, "The Sorcerer" and, especially, "H.M.S. Pinafore", become so popular that they are pirated extensively in America. The entire company