Born in Winchester, Hampshire, Toye was the younger son of Arlingham James Toye and his wife Alice Fayrer née Coates [REF].
By 1913 Toye was conducting in major London theatres - for Maurice Maeterlinck's Blue Bird at the Haymarket Theatre, Marie Brema's opera season at the Savoy Theatre, and for the première of Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion [REF].