Busby, Thomas (1755–1838)

English organist and composer. He sang at Vauxhall as a boy with great success, and later became a pupil of Battishill. He worked on a music dictionary with Samuel Arnold, and was appointed church organist at St Mary's, Newington, Surrey, around 1780. He gained a doctorate of music at Cambridge in 1801. He wrote several books on music, including a history (1825).

Works Incidental music for Cumberland's Joanna of Montfaucon (an English version of Kotzebue's Johanna von Montfaucon), Holcroft's Tale of Mystery, Anna Maria Porter's Fair Fugitives, and Lewis's Rugantino.

Oratorios The Prophecy (from Pope's Messiah; c. 1784, performed Haymarket, London, 1799), Britannia.

Other settings of odes by Pope and Gay.