Frank Merrick CBE (1886–1981) was an English pianist and composer in the early 20th century. Life Merrick was born in Clifton, now part of Bristol, the son of musical parents. Due to his asthma he was mostly educated at home by his parents and by a governess. At the age of eleven he was taken to play for the great Polish pianist Paderewski, who suggested he go to Vienna to study with Theodor Leschetizky. While in Vienna he met Johann Strauss II and showed him a waltz he'd composed. After 70 or more lessons with Leschetizky he returned to London and made his debut, first in 1902 with the Halle Orchestra under Hans Richter, and the following year at the Bechstein Hall. In 1908-9 he toured Australia with the contralto Dame Clara Butt and played with various chamber musicians, most notably Henry Holst. Before the war he married the pianist, composer and suffragette Hope Squire. During the First World War he was imprisoned as a conscientious objector, and learned Esperanto with the help of fellow-prisoner Montagu C. Butler. He dedicated much time to the language and spoke it well; in 1965 he made a recording of some of the Esperanto songs with the well-known mezzo-soprano Sybil Michelow. From 1911 to 1929 he taught at the Royal Manchester College of Music and from 1929 at the Royal College of Music. His students included David Gow, Michael Garrett, the pianist and teacher Stephen Gosney, Thomas Pitfield and Alan Rawsthorne. After the death of his first wife in 1936, Merrick married one of his students, Sybil Phoebe Case, in 1937. They had three children: Phoebe Hope (1939-), Paul Antony (1941-) and Celia Frances (1946-). Late in his life he was awarded MMus by Bristol University, when they first introduced the degree. At the age of 80 in 1966 he gave a two hour concert at the Wigmore Hall. Around 1967 he returned to the Victoria Rooms, Clifton, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of his first public recital, as a child, largely reprising the programme he had played at his début. Even later, in 1976, he visited the London Esperanto Club to be interviewed, in Esperanto, on the occasion of his 90th birthday. He was appointed a CBE in the 1978 New Year Honours. He died in London, where he lived at 16, Horbury Crescent, Notting Hill. Pianist Merrick's peers included Artur Schnabel and