Frederick Septimus Kelly
Frederick Septimus Kelly DSC (29 May 1881 – 13 November 1916) was an Australian and British musician and composer and a rower who competed for Britain in the 1908 Summer Olympics. He joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during WWI and, after surviving the Gallipoli campaign, he was killed in action in the Battle of the Somme. After leaving Oxford with fourth-class honours in history, Kelly studied composition with Iwan Knorr and piano with Ernst Engesser at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. On his return to London in 1908 he acted as an adviser to the Classical Concert Society. He used his influence in favour of the recognition of modern composers. At this time, he met and became a close friend of Leonard Borwick, probably England’s finest pianist at the time. In 1911, he visited Sydney and gave some concerts, and in 1912 took part in chamber music concerts in London. He performed with Pablo Casals. He helped organize a concert in London by Maurice Ravel, on 17 December 1913 at the Bechstein Hall. At the concert, Kelly played four solo piano pieces by Alexander Scriabin and performed the Phantasy piano quintet by James Friskin, with the English String Quartet.
Following the outbreak of war in 1914, Kelly was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve for service with the Royal Naval Division with his friends—the poet Rupert Brooke, the critic and composer William Denis Browne, and others of what became known as the Latin Club.
Kelly was wounded twice at Gallipoli, where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and reached the rank of lieutenant commander. At Gallipoli, he wrote his scores in his tent at base camp, including his tribute to Brooke, Elegy for String Orchestra: “In Memoriam Rupert Brooke” (1915), conceived in the wake of Brooke’s death. Kelly was among the party who buried him on Skyros. Kelly returned to active service after Gallipoli and died at Beaucourt-sur-l’Ancre, France, when rushing a German machine gun post in the last days of the Battle of the Somme in November 1916. He was 35. Kelly is the only one of the dozen composers killed at the Somme to have a marked grave. His men retrieved his body and carried it back through No Man’s Land. He was buried in Martinsart’s British Cemetery not far from where he fell at the age of 35.