Background
He was born at Swalwell, near Newcastle, in 1748.
He was born at Swalwell, near Newcastle, in 1748.
His father began to teach him singing before he had completed his sixth year, but died three years later, leaving him in charge of guardians, who made no provision whatever for continuing his musical education, for which he was thenceforward dependent entirely upon his own aptitude for learning, aided by a few lessons in thoroughbass which he received from Charles Avison.
Notwithstanding the difficulties inseparable from this imperfect training, he obtained admission in 1772 to the orchestra at the Italian Opera in London, at first as a second violin, and afterwards as principal viola, and this engagement he retained for eighteen years. In the meantime he turned his serious attention to composition, and in 1778 produced his first English comic opera, The Flitch of Bacon, at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, with so great success that he was immediately engaged as composer to Covent Garden Theatre, for which he continued to produce English operas and other dramatic pieces in quick succession until 1797, when he resigned his office, and devoted himself to compositions of a different class, producing a great number of very beautiful glees, some instrumental chamber music, and other miscellaneous compositions. In 1817 he was made master of the royal music. He died in London on the 25th of January 1829, and was buried in the south cloister at Westminster Abbey.
On 21 February 1776 he was in Durham, where he attended the meeting of the city's masonic lodge at the Marquis of Granby tavern. The lodge Minutes indicate that he was by this date already a member of the St. John's lodge in Newcastle. He later also became a member of the Sunderland Phoenix lodge. Details of the frequency of Shield's attendance at these north-east lodges is not yet clear, but can only have been occasional, given his career in London.