Herbert J. Ellis

Herbert J. Ellis (4 July 1865 – 13 October 1903) was a banjo player, a mandolinist, guitar player and a composer. Music historian Philip J. Bone called him “without question the most fertile English composer and arranger for mandolin and guitar.” He was the author of a banjo method, a guitar method, and a Tutor for Mandolin (1892), which he wrote while still in school. Ellis was born in Dulwich, London, the son of a licensed victualler, and received no musical instruction beyond that given by his mother, who had been a pupil of Sir Julius Benedict; she taught her son the piano and harmony. He became the delighted owner of a banjo as a boy and said that, “Having the infatuation (for the banjo), I learnt several tunes out of my piano tutor, and then occurred to me the idea of writing my own music for it. Gradually growing ambitious, I did not rest until I had written an instruction book, which, in due course saw the light and without being egotistical, I think I can safely say that it was from the advent of my Thorough school that the banjo began to be popular.” *Thorough School for the Mandoline John Alvey Turner, pub., London (1898) *Dallas Tutor for the Banjo, John Dallas and Sons