CROZIER, ST GEORGE BARON LE POER, musician and educator; b. 13 May 1814 in Dover, England; m. 29 June 1841 Isabella Deacon in Brighton, Upper Canada, and they had at least three sons; d. 21 Nov. 1892 in Belleville, Ont.

Nothing is known of St George Baron Le Poer Crozier’s early life or musical training. He came to Upper Canada in the 1830s as a military bandmaster, and in this connection served in the rebellion of 1837–38. In 1841 he married the daughter of the collector of customs at Picton. Their first child, John Albert Gordon, was born the following year in Toronto, where Crozier appears to have been stationed as bandmaster of the 93rd Foot. At an unspecified date military obligations took him to England and Ireland (his third son, Lief Newry Fitzroy*, was born 11 June 1846 in Newry) as well as to Gibraltar and the Mediterranean. In 1846 the music company of Abraham* and Samuel Nordheimer in Toronto published a quick march for piano by Crozier, “Those evening bells,” which suggests that he had returned. Around 1848 the A. and S. Nordheimer Company also published his “Les jolies filles du Canada,” a polka for piano. In 1855 and 1856 he directed concerts in Hamilton, where in 1858 he was listed as inspector of revenue. In Toronto that year he conducted a concert for the Metropolitan Choral Society and played in the orchestra for its presentation of Haydn’s The creation.

In 1860 Crozier advertised himself as “Professor of Music” in Belleville, not far from his wife’s home town of Picton. At least two of his brothers had settled there, one of whom, Thomas Charles Crozier, had also been active in Toronto in the 1840s as a composer, bandmaster, and conductor. Crozier was to remain in Belleville for the rest of his life. He apparently retired from the military in 1866, and by 1868 he was listed as professor of music at Albert College, Belleville, and at Ontario College, Picton. In 1870 he began to style himself “Doctor” Crozier and was thenceforth always identified as “Mus.Doc.,” but where he obtained the degree is not known. Later bulletins of Albert College and of Victoria College, Cobourg, with which the former became affiliated, indicate that he was accepted in their list of graduates from 1871 or 1872 ad eundem, which is to say that he was admitted as doctor of music without examination on the basis of a degree from elsewhere. At any rate, he remained in association with Albert College as teacher or examiner until his death, and he continued to teach privately until the 1880s. In 1871 he also assumed the post of organist at St Andrew’s, the Presbyterian church in Belleville. Late in his life, in 1888, he represented Belleville at the meeting in Toronto of the Canadian Society of Musicians.

Although little detail of Crozier’s musical activities is available, he was evidently a musician of taste and skill. His programs included overtures by popular composers such as Rossini and Donizetti, as well as works by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, whose music was not often heard in mid-19th-century Upper Canada. His own music was in the salon style of the period. These pieces include “The Nor’West Mounted Police waltzes,” published by Nordheimer around 1877 and doubtless inspired by the fact that his youngest son, Leif, had joined the force. For the last 30 years of his life Crozier was Belleville’s leading musician, one of those who, by teaching and example, were so important in the development of cultural life outside the largest cities.

Carl Morey