Marjory Kennedy-Fraser

Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (née Kennedy; 1 October 1857 – 22 November 1930) was a Scottish singer, composer and arranger.

Marjory was born in Perth to a well-known Scottish singer, David Kennedy and his second wife, Elizabeth Fraser. As a child she used to accompany her father on his tours in Scotland and abroad, playing the piano while he sang. Various of her siblings were also professional musicians, and three of them (Lizzie, Kate and James — soprano, contralto and baritone respectively) died in the fire that burnt down the Théâtre municipal of Nice, France, in 1881. Her youngest sister Jessie married the pianist and teacher Tobias Matthay. Their father David Kennedy died aged 61 in 1886 in Ontario, Canada, while on a tour.

In 1887 she married the mathematician Alexander Yule Fraser FRSE (1850-1890), her mother's younger cousin, whom she had first met in 1882 in Aberdeen. Alexander (Alec) had completed in 1881 his MA with Honours at the University of Aberdeen and in 1885 was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1889, he was appointed headmaster of Allan Glen's Technical School in Glasgow, and the family moved there. However, his health began to deteriorate and he was diagnosed with pneumonia. The couple travelled to South Africa, where the hotter weather contributed for Alec's health to improve considerably, but as soon as they returned to Glasgow, he became ill again and died in November 1890. Marjory thus found herself a widow at the age of thirty-three, and with her two small children, David and Patuffa, to look after. She settled at 5 Mayfield Road in southern Edinburgh with her mother and two sisters and made her living as a music teacher and lecturer.

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