Laura Wilson Barker

Laura Wilson Barker (6 March 1819 – 22 May 1905), was a composer, performer and artist, sometimes also referred to as Laura Barker, Laura W Taylor or (after her marriage in 1855) as "Mrs Tom Taylor".

Career Barker was born in Thirkleby, North Yorkshire, the third daughter of a clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Barker. She studied privately with Cipriani Potter and became an accomplished pianist and violinist. She began composing in the mid-1830s - her Seven Romances for voice and guitar were published in 1837. During this period some of her compositions - including a symphony in manuscript, on 19 April 1845 - were performed at York Choral Society concerts.

On 19 June 1855 she married the English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant and editor of Punch magazine Tom Taylor. Barker contributed music to at least one of her husband's plays, an overture and entr'acte to Joan of Arc (1871), and provided harmonisations as an appendix to his translation of Ballads and Songs of Brittany (1865).

Barker wrote several sonatas and a great many other pieces for the piano - including the Four Studies (1846) and Revolution Waltzes (1849) - which are now in the collection of her great great grandson, Rupert Stutchbury. There are also some variations for organ and other music. Other pieces include the cantata Enone (1850), the violin sonata A Country Walk (1860), theatre music for As You Like It, (April 1880), Songs of Youth (1884), string quartets, madrigals and solo songs. The composer was present.

Barker was also an artist of theatrical subjects. Several of her paintings hang at Smallhythe Place in Kent, Ellen Terry's house.

Personal life Barker owned a Stradivarius violin dating from 1732, which (suffering the same fate as its owner), was after her marriage known as the Tom Taylor Strad. It had been inherited from her mother, Jane Flower, who was the niece of the Rev. William Flower of York, who had acquired the violin in 1837.

Tom Taylor died suddenly at his home in 1880 at the age of 62.

Selected works Seven Romances for voice and guitar (1836) The Sprite Polka (1844) for piano Morceau Characteristique (1845), piano four hands Four Studies (1846) for piano Ode to the Passions (text William Collins 1846) Six Songs (1847) Dungeon Ghyll Force (1848), piano four hands Piano Sonata No. 1 (1849) Proteus: Fantasia (1849) for piano Revolution Waltzes (1849) for piano Enone, cantata (1850) A Prophesy, choir and orchestra (text Keats, 1850, fp. 1899) Six Songs (1852) Violin Sonata A Country Walk (1860) Music to Shakespeare's As You Like It (fp. 14 April 1880) Songs of Youth (1883)