YORKE [JONES], Josephine (b Cincinnati, 7 March 1850; d Home of the Little Sisters of the Poor, Chicago, 2 March 1931)

This chapter presents a biography of mid- to late-19th-century Victorian vocalist Josephine Yorke. American-born Josie Jones, in a career spent almost entirely in Great Britain, became one of the outstanding contralto vocalists on the English opera stage of the 1870s and 1880s. Miss Jones began her musical studies in her home town with one Signor A C Alfisi, before, in July 1872, in the company of another local would-be vocalist, Emma Cranch, she sailed for Italy 'to perfect her musical education'. In April 1879 she made a swift voyage to America, where she sang at the Sängerfest at Cincinnati's Springer Hall, alongside Mme Otto Alvsleben, Myron Whitney and Miss Emma Cranch, and, as 'Miss Josie Jones Yorke', appeared in concert at Pike's Opera House. In 1896 she's at St James's Church in Wabash, singing in quartet with Mme Zuckermann Schram, Arthur Burton and Louis Campion, and that was her last sighting.