Carey, Henry

Henry Carey (* um 26. August 1687; † 4. Oktober 1743 in London) war ein englischer Dichter und Komponist. Er komponierte musikalische Farcen, schrieb volkstümliche Kantaten und Lieder, darunter das Drama The Honest Yorkshireman (1736), die im englischen Sprachraum bekannte Ballade Sally in Our Alley, eine Melodie, die in Beggar’s Opera einging und 1737 in einer Sammlung seiner Werke gedruckt erschien. (...) Sein Sohn behauptete später, Carey sei der Autor der späteren britischen Nationalhymne God Save the King gewesen. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Carey_(Dichter)

Henry Carey (c. 26 August 1687 – 5 October 1743) was an English poet, dramatist and composer. He is remembered as an anti-Walpolean satirist and also as a patriot. Several of his melodies continue to be sung today, and he was widely praised in the generation after his death. Because he worked in anonymity, selling his own compositions to others to pass off as their own, contemporary scholarship can only be certain of some of his poetry, and a great deal of the music he composed was written for theatrical incidental music. However, under his own name and hand, he was a prolific songwriter and balladeer, and he wrote the lyrics for almost all of these songs. Further, he wrote numerous operas and plays. (...)

In the same year [1732], Carey may have been the first to sing "God Save the King" at a Patriot Whig meeting, and there is some reason to attribute the song to him. The Bath Chronicle of 13 August 1795 recounted:

The uncertainty concerning the author of the words and music of "God save the King", has been removed by the testimony of Mr. [John Christopher] Smith, of Bath, who says that Mr. Henry Carey... came to him with the words and melody of the song in question, desiring him to correct the bass, which Mr. Smith told him was not proper; and at Mr. Carey’s request, Mr. Smith wrote down another in correct harmony.

The earliest published version of God Save the King (for two voices) seems to date from the early 1740s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Carey_(writer)