Introduction

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor created music that gave a great deal of pleasure to millions. After I read the 1915 biography and then traced his African doctor father in the Medical Register I suspected there was a different story to that told in the biography and entries in encyclopedias. Searching contemporary reports I noticed commentators took different views of the same music, and it became clear that their views had been affected by the music’s emotional impact. A century later websites and other comments seem to take views that are emotional rather than factual.