The following is extracted from Volume I of the 1986 edition of South African Music Encyclopedia (J.P. Malan, ISBN 0 86965 586 8)
GLADYS DANIEL (Gladys Constance Daniels), coloratura soprano, born 23 March 1890 in Kimberley, died 7 August 1930 in Cape Town
Gladys Daniel was generally known as the "Natal Nightingale" (or even South African Nightingale). Her real surname was Daniels, but she chose Gladys Daniel as her stage name.
She received singing lessons from Frank Proudman, Mme Hooper-Rees and Mme Marie Louise Mazery in Kimberley, and then continued her studies in Durban under Grogan Caney and Margaret Jewel. With the aid of funds raised by music lovers, she went to London in 1919 (or 1920) and became Frederick King's student at the Royal Academy of Music for three years, receiving several medal awards. Her concert tour in South Africa in 1923 created such a stir that mounted police had to control the crowds outside the Cape Town City Hall on the night of her first concert.
At the beginning of 1924 Gladys Daniel went to Milan, where her voice was irrevocably spoilt by faulty teaching. From December 1926 until August 1927, and from March until June 1928 she was on concert tours in South Africa. During her last visit to England she got married and while there, she made several records. On 21 July 1929 she returned to South Africa to settle in Durban for a short while before going on a last tour which ended in Cape Town.
