Coleridge-Taylor was brought up in Croydon . He studied the violin at the Royal College of Music and composition with Charles Villiers Stanford. In 1899 he married Jessie Walmisley who had been a student with him at the RCM. Her parents did not want her to be married to someone of mixed race. The couple had a son, Hiawatha (1900-1980) and a daughter, Avril, born Gwendolyn (1903-1998).