Francis Toye

John Francis Toye (27 January 1883 – 13 October 1964) was an English music critic, teacher, writer and educational administrator.

After early efforts as a composer and novelist, and service in naval intelligence in World War I, he became music critic of The Morning Post from 1925 to 1937, which he combined with teaching singing and working as managing director of the Restaurant Boulestin in London.

In 1939 Toye was appointed director of the British Institute of Florence, but the outbreak of World War II forced him to leave Italy in 1940.

[6] In the years leading up to World War I, he also produced a variety of works, including a short play, The Extra Shilling;[7] incidental music (jointly with his brother Geoffrey) for The Well in the Wood, a "pastoral masque" by C. M. A. Peake;[8] a sonata for piano and flute, performed at the Steinway Hall in London in 1910;[9] magazine articles on a wide variety of subjects, from "The Theory of Feminism" for a suffragette paper, The Englishwoman,[10] to "Opera in England" for The English Review;[11] a comic novel written jointly with Marcel Boulestin;[12] and a second novel, written alone, Diana and Two Symphonies.

[15] The Times wrote of this period of Toye's life: "His tastes were Latin as against the generally Teutonic atmosphere of London music, being however an ardent Handelian; he was interested in singing and even gave lessons in the art.

[2] In addition to his writing, Toye was a frequent broadcaster, delivering regular talks about music on the main BBC station between 1926 and 1931.

[19] The Times later wrote, "he devoted a dozen years to the work of the institute with success founded on his love of Italy and his reputation as one of the line of English eccentrics.

[1] Toye retired from the directorship of the institute in 1958, bought a farm near Florence, where he grew vines, and "added a good deal of spice and gaiety to the musical life of London and to that of the English colony in Italy.

[6] His fellow critic, Neville Cardus, wrote of him, in an obituary tribute in The Guardian, "Years ago he was critic for the old Morning Post, and as typical a Morning Post man as well could be, distinguished in presence, a connoisseur of music, good food, and wine, rather unapproachable at first sight, but once known extremely likeable, a representative in excelsis of the old school, fastidious yet humane.