John Squire was a banker and skilled landscape painter whose work was exhibited at the prestigious British Royal Academy, but more importantly also a musician who had great influence on musical life in the West of England and south Wales. This fascinating work of social history, based on extensive primary-source research, places his life and career in its broader cultural and social context to give a history of classical music-making in provincial Victorian Britain. A detailed account of an important and entirely obscured figure, this is an excellent contribution to the history of amateur music-making, its increasing professionalization and the formation of British tastes outside London during the Victorian period.