Margaret Eliot Explained

Margaret Augusta Eliot (26 February 1914 – 27 February 2011) was an English music teacher and musician. She was a professor of oboe at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and her best-known student (from 1948) was George Martin; in 2011, just before her death at age 97, she appeared in the documentary film Produced by George Martin.^[3] In the early 1960s she also taught Paul McCartney to successfully play the recorder, which he later used to effect, for the recording of, "The Fool on the Hill".^[4]

Eliot was also an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music.

Family

Margaret Eliot was born to Hon. Edward Granville Eliot (1878–1958) - a younger brother of both 7th and 8th Earls of St Germans - and his wife Clare Louise née Phelips (1883–1927). She was a great granddaughter of Edward Granville Eliot, 3rd Earl of St Germans (1798–1877).

On 27 July 1943,^[5] she married Dr Richard Asher (1912–1969); the couple had three children:

1. Peter Asher (born 1944), who was one half of the pop duo Peter & Gordon and successful music producer;
2. Jane Asher (born 1946), the film and TV actress, novelist
3. Clare Asher (born 1948), the radio actress.

Notes and References

1. GRO Register of Births: MAR 1914 1b 161(?) PANCRAS, Margaret A. Eliot, mmn = Phelips
2. Web site: For Margaret.
3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00gj3jf 'George Martin's Early Days', clip from Arena with Margaret Eliot
4. Brown, Craig. One, Two, Three, Four, The Beatles in Time (2020), p 116
5. GRO Register of Marriages: SEP 1943 1b 4 PANCRAS - Richard Asher = Margaret Eliot