Teresa del Riego

Teresa Clotilde del Riego, later Teresa Leadbitter (7 April 187623 January 1968) was an English violinist, pianist, singer and composer of Spanish ancestry. Biography Teresa Clotilde del Riego was born in Marylebone, central London to English mother Clara, from Devon, and Spanish father Miguel, a carpenter who had naturalised. She had a sister Agnes Manuela Teresa, a scoutmaster who founded the Women Signallers Territorial Corps, and a brother John Anthony, an actor under the stage name Philip Desborough. The family later moved to Cookham Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire. Del Riego began playing the piano aged five and wrote her first song at the age of 12. She studied piano, violin, singing and composition at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and the West Central College of Music in London with Sir Paolo Tosti and Marie Withrow, and in Paris. Del Riego was heavily involved in World War I charity concerts. She married her husband, Francis John Graham Leadbitter, in 1908; he died in action in 1917. They had one son. She was a member of the Society of Women Musicians and of the Cowdray Club in Cavendish Square. She also taught singing and accompanying. Her principal residence in later life