Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Dean, Thomas
DEAN, THOMAS (18th cent.), musician, was born towards the end of the seventeenth century. He wrote music for Oldmixon's tragedy the ‘Governor of Cyprus,’ produced at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre in the early part of 1703. On 30 Nov. 1709, at a benefit concert for Turner, given at Stationers' Hall, Dean was announced to perform ‘a solo of the famous Archangelo Corelli's’ on the violin. Burney remarks on this that it was the first time he had seen such a promise in the newspapers. At the same concert ‘several full pieces of musick for trumpets, hautboys, violins, &c., by Mr. Dean, Mr. Masheip, and others’ were announced.
Burney says that Dean was organist at Warwick and Coventry. On 9 July 1731 he took the degree of Mus. Doc. at Oxford, where his name was entered at University College. The date of his death and all details of his biography are unknown. His music to the ‘Governor of Cyprus’ was published, and some violin pieces by him are in the late editions of the ‘Division Violin.’ The library of Christ Church, Oxford, contains some manuscript church music by him, and in the British Museum (Add. MS. 31467) is some of his harpsichord music.
[Burney's Hist. of Music, iv. 634; Hawkins's Hist. of Music, v. 17; Genest's Hist. of the Stage, ii. 280; List of Oxford Graduates; Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 438; Tatler, No. 100; Daily Courant, 29 Nov. 1709.]