Moscheles was survived by fourteen grandchildren: nine born to Emily and Antonin Roche, and five to Serena and Georg Rosen. Only two—Raphael and Nina Roche—made plans to follow their grandfather’s profession, but musical and artistic gifts have continued to emerge and flourish among later generations. These gifts are of course found in families with no such forebears; conversely, some great men seem to have absorbed so much genius in their own being as to leave little or none for their descendants. But Moscheles’ love and generous care for his children seem to have acted as an example to inspire and help future generations to have productive and fulfilling lives.

Antonin Roche (1810–1899), a French Catholic from a village near Le Puy in Haute-Loire, France, quarrelled with his father when he told him to become a doctor, and escaped to Paris. He supported himself by teaching, and showed such aptitude that he was invited to move in 1837 to London, where he became established as a Professor of French and author of a series of literary and educational books. He married Emily Moscheles in 1846. Their nine children were brought up (as Roman Catholics) in “the Cottage,” Cadogan Gardens, a large old house in Chelsea, England. A small building in their garden became home in 1862 to their uncle Felix Moscheles; he later enlarged it and named it “the Studio.” The Roche children spoke French at their father’s end of the dining table and German at their mother’s, picking up English from friends in the neighbouring streets!

All nine children lived into their eighties. Charles (1847–1935) became a journalist and translator, and married an American girl, Annie Cavenor, in Chicago in 1886. Henry (1848–1929) took over and continued his father’s classes into the 1900s. He and his wife Lucy had three boys. Louis (1850–1944) worked for Alfred de Rothschild, and had one son and five daughters. Marie, the eldest girl (1851–1940), married Charles Dickens’ sixth son, Henry, who became a judge and in 1922 received a knighthood. Most of Dickens’ descendants come from Henry, and thus also from Moscheles. Marie’s reminiscences Eighty-four Years Ago describe how she and her sisters loved to produce plays, helped and encouraged by actors such as Henry Irving.