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Matilda Madeline Payne was born in 1879, the daughter of Mr George Payne, a businessman who was for many years well known at Mile End, Limehouse, and Forest Gate, and who lived at Wanstead by 1907. Known professionally as Madeline Payne, her career as a pianist began early. At the age of 9, she won the first two prizes at the Stratford Musical Festival, and played before Paderewski. At 12, she won a prize for scale playing, and gained an Honours Certificate (Senior Grade) of the Associated Board. In 1893, at the age of 14, she won the Erard Centenary Scholarship Competition, worth £40 p.a. for 3 years, and a gold medal, with the loan of an Erard Grand concert piano: the scholarship was extended another two years. When that expired, she won the Knill Silver Challenge Cup, tenable for one year (winners' names were engraved on the cup, but it remained at the Guildhall School of Music, each winner receiving a silver medal).
Madeline Payne received her musical education in England, studying at the Guildhall School of Music under Mr John Baptiste Calkin. Later she studied under Miss Fanny Davies, Professor Hambourg and Paderewski, the latter saying of her "Miss Madeline Payne is the most talented girl pianist I have heard". She toured England and Ireland with Madame Lilian Blauvelt in 1903, and again in 1904. Madeline Payne also appeared as a solo pianist at the Promenade Concerts, Albani, Albert Hall, Sarasate and all the principal concerts in London. Her talent and skill were strongly praised by Sir John Stainer.
Shortly before the First World War, she married Bernard Hassell, having a daughter in 1913. She died in Kent on 6 October 1962, at the age of 83.