Armstrong , Marianne Charlotte , 1860-1924 , née Rowe musician and composer

Marianne Charlotte Rowe was born at Norwood on 29 Jan 1860, the only child of Charles George and Marianne Rowe, who ran a school for girls at Warwick Hall, Maida Vale. She was a talented child pianist and commenced lessons aged ten with Sir Julius Benedict for nine years. She commenced composition and assumed the name 'Carlotta Rowe' for her publications. She married at nineteen but divorced three months later. She married George William Armstrong, a London solicitor, in 1886. His death two years later prompted her to devote her life to her mother and to composition. She composed numerous songs and dances, 'Jackeydora' a comic opera, 'The Little Reprobate' a musical comedy and the music for a number of one-act plays as well as the incidental music to Sidney Grundy's play 'The Silver Shield'. She died on 2 Feb 1924. A legacy in her will established at the Royal College of Music the Carlotta Rowe Composition Scholarship for a woman composer of light opera, and the Marianne Rowe Singing Scholarship to a soprano or mezzo-soprano.