The Royal Academy of Music in London was founded in 1822 by Lord Burghersh (later the 11th Earl of Westmorland), a soldier and keen amateur musician, to whom this book is dedicated. He was supported by the French harpist and composer Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, who had fled to London to avoid prosecution in France for fraud and forgery. In 1854, the Rev. William Wahab Cazalet (1808–75) wrote a history of the Royal Academy 'compiled from authentic sources' and beginning with an adulatory short biography of the Earl. Cazalet remarks in his preface that 'the history comprises only about eleven years of the life of the Institution; but it is this portion alone that has any interest, for when all the struggles and troubles attending its establishment are at an end, the records of a mere routine of business give no material for publication'.