 By 1718 he had become leader of the opera orchestra of George Frideric Handel, a position which he held until 1737, when he was succeeded by the younger John Clegg.In 1739 he became one of the first beneficiaries of the Royal Society of Musicians and was little heard of thereafter, apart from an erroneous report of his death in 1746.After a benefit concert in Dublin in 1750, he died there of malaria in 1752.