Frederick Tomlinson (18 December 1927 – 17 July 2016) was a British singer, songwriter and composer. He founded the Fred Tomlinson Singers, who sang the music featured on ''

Monty Python's Flying Circus ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' (also known as simply ''Monty Python'') is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, who became known ...

'', ''

The Two Ronnies ''The Two Ronnies'' is a British television comedy sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. It was created by Bill Cotton and aired on BBC1 from April 1971 to December 1987. The usual format included sketches, solo sections, seria ...

'' and other British television shows. Tomlinson also composed and wrote songs for

Monty Python Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four ...

, including "

The Lumberjack Song "The Lumberjack Song" is a comedy song by the comedy troupe Monty Python. The song was written and composed by Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Fred Tomlinson. It first appeared in the ninth episode of ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'', "The An ...

", which he co-wrote with

Terry Jones Terence Graham Parry Jones (1 February 1942 – 21 January 2020) was a Welsh comedian, director, historian, actor, writer and member of the Monty Python comedy team. After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, Jones and ...

and

Michael Palin Sir Michael Edward Palin (; born 5 May 1943) is an English actor, comedian, writer, television presenter, and public speaker. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. Since 1980, he has made a number of travel documentaries. Palin w ...

. He and his Fred Tomlinson Singers then performed "The Lumberjack Song" on ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' in December 1969, as well as the song "

Spam Spam may refer to: * Spam (food), a canned pork meat product * Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages ** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages ** Messaging spam, spam targeting users of instant messaging ( ...

" in 1970 while dressed as

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

. Tomlinson was born on 18 December 1927, in

Rawtenstall Rawtenstall () is a town in the borough of Rossendale, Lancashire, England. The town lies 15 miles/24 km north of Manchester, 22 miles/35 km east of Preston and 45 miles/70 km south east of the county town of Lancaster. The town is at the cen ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

. His father, Fred, had created the Rossendale Male Voice Choir in 1924. His older brother,

Ernest Tomlinson Ernest Tomlinson MBE (19 September 1924 – 12 June 2015) was an English composer, particularly noted for his light music compositions. He was sometimes credited as 'Alan Perry'. Life and career Tomlinson was born in Rawtenstall, Lancash ...

, was a composer. He won a scholarship to Manchester Cathedral choir school until it closed in 1940 due to the war. He was then at age 11 admitted to the

Choir of King's College, Cambridge The Choir of King's College, Cambridge is an English Anglican choir. It is considered one of today's most accomplished and renowned representatives of the great English choral tradition. It was created by King Henry VI, who founded King's Coll ...

, attending

King's College School, Cambridge King's College School is a coeducational independent preparatory school for children aged 4 to 13 in Cambridge, England, situated on West Road off Grange Road, west of the city centre. It was founded to educate the choristers in the King's ...

. He then attended Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School before studying music,

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

, and the

Italian language Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...

Leeds University , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. Tomlinson trained to become a teacher and served in the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

before embarking on a career in music. He joined the George Mitchell Singers and formed his own vocal quartet, the Northerners, before establishing the Fred Tomlinson Singers in the late 1960s. He married his wife, Pamela, during the mid-1950s. Tomlinson had a lifelong interest in the music of

Peter Warlock Philip Arnold Heseltine (30 October 189417 December 1930), known by the pseudonym Peter Warlock, was a British composer and music critic. The Warlock name, which reflects Heseltine's interest in occultism, occult practices, was used for all his ...

and acted as the chairman of the Peter Warlock Society for 25 years. He produced editions of Warlock scores, wrote a companion piece to '' The Curlew'' using the same instrumentation, and wrote several books about the composer, including ''A Peter Warlock Handbook'' (1974, 1977) and ''Warlock and van Dieren, with a van Dieren Catalogue'' (1978).Peter Warlock Society
/ref> He composed original music under the name "Frederick Culpan", including ''The Chaucer Suite''. Fred Tomlinson died on 17 July 2016, at the age of 88. His death was announced on ''Monty Pythons official website.

References

External links

* British male singers British songwriters British composers Monty Python Alumni of the University of Leeds People from Rawtenstall Choristers of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge 1927 births 2016 deaths {{UK-singer-stub