Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Date of Birth: 15 August, 1875

Place of Birth: Holborn, London, England, U.K.

Date of Death: 1 September, 1912

Place of Death: Croydon, London, England, U.K.

Ethnicity:
*father – Krio Sierra Leonean
*mother – English

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a British composer and conductor. His work includes his three cantatas on the epic poem “The Song of Hiawatha.” He was known as the “African Mahler.”

He was the son of Alice Hare Martin and Dr. Daniel Peter Hughes Taylor, who was an administrator in West Africa, as well as a coroner in the Colony of Gambia. His father was a Krio from Sierra Leone. His mother was English. His parents were not married, and his father left for Africa not knowing his mother was pregnant. His mother named him after poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Samuel was married to Jessie Walmisley, with whom he had two children, musicians Hiawatha, who adopted his father’s music for performances, and pianist, conductor, and composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor.

Samuel’s maternal grandfather was named Benjamin Holmans.