"'My heart as an apple, sound, juicy, has been,
My limbs and my trunk have been sturdy and clean;
Uncankered I've thriven, in heart and in head,
So under the apple trees lay me when dead.'
Then fill up the jug, &c."
Near Crediton, at Creedy Bridge, was born John Davy, the composer of the popular song "The Bay of Biscay." He was baptised on Christmas Day, 1763, at Upton Hellions, and was an illegitimate child; but he was tenderly brought up by his uncle, a village blacksmith, who played the violoncello in Upton Hellions Church choir.
When in Crediton one day as a child with his uncle, he saw some soldiers at the roll-call, and was vastly delighted at the music of the fifes; so much so that he borrowed one and very soon learned to play it. After that he made fifes with his penknife of the hollow-stalked weeds growing on the banks of the Creedy, locally called "bitters," and sold them to his playfellows.
A year later the chimes of Crediton made such an impression on this precocious child, that he purloined twenty or thirty horseshoes from his uncle's smithy, and the old fellow was sadly perplexed as to what had become of them, till he heard a mysterious chiming from the garret, and on ascending to it, found that John had suspended eight of the horseshoes from the rafters so as to form an octave, and with a rod was striking them in imitation of the Crediton chimes.
This story getting to the ears of the rector of the parish, Chancellor Carrington, he felt interested in the child and showed him a harpsichord, on which he soon learned to play. Davy also at this time applied himself to learn the violin.
When Davy was eleven years old the rector introduced him to another parson, named Eastcott, who possessed a pianoforte, an instrument of recent introduction. With this the boy soon became familiar. An effort was now made by these two kindly clergymen, and they placed him with Jackson, the organist of Exeter Cathedral, with whom he remained some years and completed his musical education.
He then went to London, where he was employed to supply music for the songs of the operas of that day, and was retained as a composer by the managers of the Theatre Royal until infirmities, rather than age, rendered him incapable of exertion, and he died, before he was sixty-two, in penury. It was due only to a couple of London tradesmen, one of whom was a native of Crediton, that he was not consigned to a pauper's grave. He wrote some dramatic pieces for the theatre at Sadler's Wells, and composed the music for Holman's opera of What a Blunder, which was performed at the little theatre in the Haymarket in 1800. In the following year he was engaged with Moorhead in the music of Perouse, and with Mountain in that of The Brazen Mask. His last opera was Woman's Will. Some of his songs have obtained a firm hold, as "Just Like Love," "May we ne'er want a Friend," "The Death of Will Watch the Smuggler," which I have heard a village blacksmith sing, and "The Bay of Biscay."
He was buried in St. Martin's churchyard, February 28th, 1824.