Samuel Coleridge-Taylor 1875-1912

Voted among 100 Great Black Britons, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a composer and conductor whose choral trilogy Hiawatha was popular through to the 1940s. This display marks the centenary of his premature death at 37.

The display documents Coleridge-Taylor’s increasing fame, with an early publicity photo complete with facsimile signature, inclusion in a group image of fellow-composers (including Elgar and Ethel Smyth) and posthumous renown on a cigarette card. An intriguing oil study painted when he was a child is complemented by a stunning portrait by E.O Hoppé.