[8] In 1902, Kinsey, along with Frank Bridge (viola), Thomas F Morris (violin) and Ivor James (cello), founded the English String Quartet.
Ivor James recalls in his memoires how, in 1904, the quartet were sent by Sir Hubert Parry, director of the RCM, to play the Schumann and Brahms piano quintets with Donald Tovey at 10 Downing Street when Arthur Balfour was Prime Minister.
And how a fortnight later, Sir Hubert lined the quartet up in the corridor outside his room at the RCM and put ten golden sovereigns into each of their hands, saying that “Arthur had sent them for the boys!” The following year they went to Mr Balfour’s house in Carlton House Terrace where they played the Bach C major Concerto for two pianos (Donald Tovey and James Friskin) with the quartet plus Ernest Tomlinson (violist) and Robert A. Grimson (cellist), together with the Brahms B flat Sextet.
Their programs at Aeolian Hall featured new works by Charles Villiers Stanford, Frank Bridge, Walford Davies, James Friskin, Hubert Parry, William Hurlstone and others.
In March 1919 he performed alongside Lionel Tertis, Felix Salmond, William Murdoch, Marjorie Hayward, and Pedro G. Morales in the English premieres of two works by the Spanish composer Joaquín Turina - his Piano Quintet and his Scéne Andalouse.
[14] In 1919 he founded the Herbert Kinsey String Quartet with Frank Howard, Ernest Tomlinson and Bertie Patterson Parker.