Frederick Ouseley
English composer, organist and musicologist (1825-1889)
Sir Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley, 2nd Baronet (12 August 1825 – 6 April 1889), was an English composer, organist, musicologist and priest.
Biography
Frederick Ouseley was born in London, the son of Sir Gore Ouseley, and manifested an extraordinary precocity in music, composing his first piece at the age of three, and writing hundreds more in the following years. He composed two youthful operas, the first of which (Tom and His Mama) was written at the age of seven. His next opera (L'Isola disabitata) was written at the age of eight years and is frequently cited as the most advanced of his juvenilia. In 1844 he succeeded to the baronetcy. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford in 1843, where he graduated BA in 1846 and MA in 1849. He was ordained in the latter year, and, as curate of St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, served the parish of St Barnabas, Pimlico until 1851. He studied composition and the theory of music under Dr. Stephen Elvey at Oxford.
Throughout his life, Ouseley experienced a social conflict between his aristocratic heritage and his interest in the performance of Anglican church music, an activity which was seen as beneath someone of his stature.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1309154. VIAF identifies the subject as 64198019. The Library of Congress control number is nr93005636. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1825, 1889, 1844 and 1843.
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This entry incorporates text from “Frederick Ouseley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.