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Francis Peacock

York, England, 1723 - 1807

About MeFrancis Peacock was possibly born in or near York, but precise details of his birthplace are unknown. He studied dancing under Desnoyer, later dancing master at George III's court. In the year of his appointment as Aberdeen's dancing master, 1747, he founded the Aberdeen Musical Society with the physician John Gregory, organist Andrew Tait, and music copyist David Young. Peacock acted as a director and occasional violinist for almost sixty years for the society, which gave private concerts, with profits going to charity.

He married an Aberdonian woman, Ellen Forbes and they had one daughter Elizabeth, baptised in St Paul’s Episcopal church, Lochside. His first residence and therefore teaching studio/hall was in the fore house of the Earl Marischal’s house. When this was being dismantled to make way for Marischal Street (1766) he was moved to Meal Market Street. But from there he moved at the council’s discretion to a house in a close, known as Skipper Scott’s house, off the Castlegate. From here he taught and wrote for most of his career. To Alexander Jaffray he was ‘a really scientific professor … an excellent master but stern and severe when a dull pupil came under his hands’ (Thom, ‘Alexander Jaffray's recollections’, 146).

Peacock arranged Fifty Favourite Scotch Airs (1762), influenced by Geminiani's The Art of Playing the Violin (1751), and composed a coronation anthem for George III (1761). He also studied painting with Francis Cotes, becoming a miniaturist (no examples are known). He championed the Aberdeenshire painter James Wales, commissioning a portrait which cannot now be traced. In 1805 Peacock published Sketches Relative to the History, Theory, but More Especially to the Practice of Dancing. His teaching favoured not country dances but minuets, ‘a dance essential for children and young people … a foundation for the graces which distinguish people of fashion and breeding from others whose education has been neglected’ (Peacock, 18). He dismissed technique (‘as for the jigging part, and the figures of dances, I count that little or nothing’), instead emphasizing deportment and poise: ‘A well-set head’, ‘A diversity of countenance’, ‘A graceful and dignified carriage’ (ibid.). He charged 2 guineas a term. In Sketch XI Peacock includes hints for teachers on conduct and behaviour. He mentions the importance of dress: dancing masters should not wear ‘gaudy cloathes’. ‘In short, any thing rather than gaudy cloaths; for these, at best, are but the trappings of folly, and will never recommend a man to the esteem of people of sense.’

He eventually built himself a new residence which he called Villa Franca. This was cleared away towards the end of the 19th century when Hamilton Place West was being laid out, but no. 156 still bears that name to this day. Thus, that house and this close are the only reminders of this remarkable man, as well as the name of the arts institution in the close.

The proceeds from Sketches, which was still influential in the 1880s, he intended for the newly built lunatic hospital to which, with other charities, he left over £1000. ‘A useful citizen and a good man’ (Aberdeen Journal, 7 July 1807), Peacock died aged 84 in Aberdeen on 26 June 1807. A tablet was erected to his memory in Drum’s Aisle in St Nicholas Kirk, but has since been lost.