William Christian Sellé, (1813–1898) was a Victorian doctor of music, composer and for forty years Musician in Ordinary to Queen Victoria.

His parents were Elizabeth Underwood, from a farming family in Suffolk, and Christian Sellé, a musician who had left Hanover with Viotti, a celebrated violinist, to join the private band of the 15th Light Dragoons of Ernest Augustus Duke of Cumberland who was then living at the royal residence in Kew and was forming a band of mainly German musicians.

At fifteen he became a pupil of Cipriani Potter, at that time the principal of the Royal Academy of Music where he specialised in pianoforte.

[4] Sellé married Selina Daniel in Southwark in 1835, setting up home in Richmond on Thames where he was to live for the remainder of his life.

In 1845[5] he was appointed Organist of the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace, a prestigious role that he held for some 40 years.

His work illustrates his love of the composers of the First Viennese School and places Sellé within the romantic tradition of English music.

He played the organ at the marriage of his former pupil Princess Mary of Cambridge and was by the accounts that still exist a convivial, loquacious man with a string of anecdotes that made him exceptional company.

A Liberal and supporter of Gladstone, Sellé was an active member of his community taking part in the issues of the day.

[11] At the time of his death he left a widow and two adult daughters, one of whom was married to Harry Buxton Forman, a leading bibliographer, rare manuscripts editor and scholar of all things Shelley.