Born: No­vem­ber 15, 1774, May­fair, Lon­don, Eng­land.

Died: June 12, 1858, Ken­sing­ton, Lon­don, Eng­land.

Horsley stu­died mu­sic pri­vate­ly, then be­came or­gan­ist of Ely Cha­pel, Hol­born, Lon­don, in 1794. He as­sist­ed Dr. J. W. Call­cott (who en­cour­aged him in per­se­ver­ing at Glee-writ­ing, at which he be­came suc­cess­ful) as or­gan­ist of the Asy­lum for Fe­male Or­phans, and mar­ried Call­cott’s daugh­ter. He suc­ceeded Call­cott in 1802, hold­ing that post 52 years. A dif­fer­ence of opin­ion with the Asy­lum Com­mitt­ee led to him be­ing dis­missed. In 1838 he al­so be­came or­gan­ist of the Char­ter­house “at a sal­a­ry of £70 and a room set apart and a fire provid­ed when ne­ces­sa­ry for his use on those days up­on which his du­ty re­quires his at­tend­ance at the Hos­pi­tal.” He found­ed the Lon­don Phil­har­mon­ic So­ci­e­ty, and in lat­er years was a close friend of Fe­lix Men­dels­sohn.

Sources

Music

1. Belgrave
2. Horsley