The opera singer Cecile Lanyon performed in England and Australia in the 1940s and 50s but who was she?
Cecile was the daughter of Mabel Lanyon and Dr. James Charles Buckley. They married at Croydon on the 20 Sep 1906 (the groom’s brother Rev W.F Buckley married them).
Mabel was the younger daughter of John Charles Lanyon of Birdhurst, Croydon.
Mabel’s first child, John Charles was born in Jun 1907 and a daughter Joyce Catherine Stacey Buckley arrived in 1911.
Stacey was a family surname and perhaps the name Catherine came from Mabel’s sister-in-law Catherine Septima Lanyon.
Joyce was born and raised in Nottingham where her father worked as a Doctor and venereologist. We don’t know much about Joyce’s early life but the 1939 register lists her as a musician’s singer.
In 1940 she appeared at the Gaiety Theatre in The Magic Flute as The Queen of the Night and her name is listed as Cecile Lanyon.
She chose her mother’s maiden name ‘Lanyon’ as her stage name and adopted the name Cecile.
In 1943 she was in Cinderella at the Palace Theatre, Hammersmith.
Her mother Mabel died in 1944 and her father the following year. We don’t know when or where she met William Montgomery but by 1948 she had decided to marry him.
In 1948 Cecile married William Conway Montgomery. She had emigrated to Australia the previous weekend! Their photo appeared in the News Adelaide on 18 Oct 1948.
William Conway Montgomery was born in Ceylon on 17 Sep 1895.
In 1948 she was described as ‘principal soprano’ for a performance of Schubert’s ‘Lilac Time’. The credits also mention BBC so perhaps she had also performed for them.
By 1949 she had changed her stage name to Cecile Montgomery.
William died in Colombo, Ceylon in 1958. For the rest of her life Cecile lived with a friend and bred dogs.
She died in at Burnside City Australia on 24 Oct 1988 aged 77 years.
On her headstone she is named as Joyce Cecile Lanyon, loved daughter of the late J&M Buckley.
With thanks to Peter Duke of the Nottingham Family History Society who gave me the story.
The Lanyons 