Antoinette Sterling

Antoinette Sterling (January 23, 1850 – January 10, 1904) was an Anglo-American vocalist born in Sterlingville, a community in the Town of Philadelphia in Jefferson County, New York.

She studied with Mme Marchesi, with Mme Viardot Garcia and with Manoel Garcia, and after singing for two years in America came in 1873 to England, where she made her first appearance at Covent Garden under Sir Julius Benedict and rapidly became a popular favourite among the contraltos of the day.

She gained her greatest successes as a ballad-singer, especially in such songs as "Caller Herrin'," "The Three Fishers" and "The Lost Chord". She was a woman of deep religious feeling and many enthusiasms, and her name was constantly associated with philanthropic enterprise.

In 1875 she married John Mackinlay. She died on January 10, 1904 in Hampstead, London. After her death, her son, Malcolm Sterling Mackinlay (1876–1952) wrote her life in Antoinette Sterling and Other Celebrities (1906 Hutchinson). Her son's daughter was the romance novelist Leila S. Mackinlay, named in her honour.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.