Jessie Lillian Furze was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 composer and pianist. She was born in Wallington

Wallington

Wallington is the name of a number of places:In the UK:* Wallington, Hampshire* Wallington, Hertfordshire* Wallington, London, a town in the London Borough of Sutton* Wallingtons, a manor house in Kintbury, Berkshire, now the St Cassian's Centre...

, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

, and studied at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

where she won the Cuthbert Nunn prize for composition. After completing her studies she worked as a music teacher. She married Willem L.F. Nijhof and died in Croydon.

Works

Furze composed over 250 works, mostly didactic music. She also published songbooks with collections of songs. Selected compositions include:

• I had a dove (Text: John Keats)
• Redbreast
• The Drummer Boy
• Cheerful Sparrows
• Falling Leaves
• The Broken Doll
• Molly-O
• Grandmother's Story
• The Truants
• All Alone: Two's Company
• Farwell Mari