From the College of Arms, London, 1848

ARMS--Or and Argent, a Bend Nebly between two Cross-Crosslets Azure.

CREST--In front of a Garb Or, three Arrows, two in Saltire and one in Pale, points downwards, Sable.

MOTTO--Dat Deus Incrementum (Latin), God Gives Increase (English).

This Ottley family crest represents the line of Ottleys that on the command of James II and George III went to East India and to the Caribbean (West Indies) to colonize the islands from as far back as the middle 1600s. According to a diary of 15-year-old Elizabeth Ottley (1757-1801), there were several musicians who were friends of her family, Richard Ottley (1730-1775) being her father, who lived in a manor called Dunstan Park, in Thatcham in County Berks, and they spent several days of the Christmas holiday of 1772 in their home, from Wednesday, December 23 until Sunday, December 27.

History shows that these musicians were of the English court of King George III and Queen Charlotte who were themselves musicians, cellist and harpsichordist/singer, respectively. The musicians that Elizabeth Ottley named specifically in her diary are:

• Johann Christian Bach ((1735-1782), known as the London Bach, was the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, chapel master of Queen Charlotte, composer known for his six concerti for harpsichord and string orchestra, Op. 1, his sonata for violin and piano, Op. 16, Trios for violins and viola, Op. 4.  15-year-old Elizabeth practiced the concerti daily, and when the musicians came over Christmas of 1772, she played them with their accompanying her.
  
• Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787), Chamber musician of Queen Charlotte, was one of the last famous players of the viola da gamba as the cello came into vogue. He worked with J.C. Bach in forming the famous London Concerts. He wrote "The Pure Method for Tuning the Harpsichord According to Abel", as well as composed String Quartets, Sonatas for Violins, Cello and bass, and Trio Sonatas.
• Wilhelm Cramer (1746-1799) was a composer of sonatas for violins, and a Trio Sonata. He formed the Wilhelm Cramer String Quartet that existed from 1784-1792, whose members were Cramer, Benjamin Blake, Luigi Borghi (viola, with violinist and composer William Shield, musician of Covent Garden, as his substitute on viola when Borghi was ill), and James Cervetto or William/James Smith (I guess on cello). In fact, through Haydn's friendship with William Shield, it was the William Cramer String Quartet that premiered Haydn's String Quartet Op. 54, given to them from the composer in manuscript for the Professional Concert Season of 1789.
• Pietro Grassi-Florio (died 1795), served as principal flutist of the Royal Opera, King's Theatre, Covent Garden, composed at least one Sonata for Flute, Op. 1. Actually it was he who revived the use of the low C# and C in the fluted in 1770. They were permanently added in 1772.
• Luigi Borghi (ca. 1745-1806), was a composer also who wrote 6 Duets for Violin and Cello, and was violist. His wife also attended the gathering at the Ottley home. Actually they stayed with the Ottleys until Friday, January 1st, 1773 according to Elizabeth's diary.

In fact, the group gave a concert in the Ottley home, Dunstan Park on Christmas eve, and another one on the afternoon of Christmas day in 1772. Imagine, this young 15-year-old girl playing 4 of J. C. Bach's concerti for harpsichord with the composer and four leading musicians of the Court accompanying her on the strings!!!!

In 1795 Elizabeth Ottley Warner (she married her first cousin, Joseph) left England for the Caribbean in their own ship, accompanied by a fleet of 150 ships including war ships. By this time she had purchased a new pianoforte, and during an especially treacherous 4-day storm, she hoped they would stop in Barbados so she could get it tuned before they went on to Saint Vincent.

Nevilla Ottley's Musical Family from the 1800s to the present

Musicians, teachers, authors, artists, preachers, engineers, agriculturalists continued down through the Ottley line all over the world till now. Ms. Nevilla Ottley, the founder of the Ottley Music School, has found music in many of her ancestral lines, Ottley, Grosvenor, Connor, Taitt to name a few. More closely on in the Ottley, Grosvenor and Connor lines,

• Her great-great-grandfather, John Joseph Connor (1833-1933) sang the slave songs to his grandson, 
• Edric Connor (1913-1968) who was a singer and collected/published the West Indian Folk Songs and Spirituals (much like Hamilton Waters did for his grandson Harry T. Burleigh who did the same for African American Spirituals). Edric Connor (born in Trinidad, was also a Shakespearean actor in London, and acted in at least 19 movies in his short life.
• Edric Connor's daughter, Geraldine Connor, is a major producer in Yorkshire
  
• Nevilla's grandfather, Joseph Ethelbert Ottley (1871-1924) born in Tobago, and lived in Trinidad from age 16, was a string player, owning and playing violin, viola, cello, cuatro, banjo and bass.
  
• Her uncle Cecil Gordon Ottley (1910-2006) was a guitarist, acoustic from age 16, and electric guitar in his later years.  His children are musicians, 
• Laura Ottley Franklin a piano and voice teacher and choral conductor, 
• Margaret Ottley Okubo a published author, others  are teachers, financiers, and his grandchildren include, 
• Glenn Gordon Ottley, was a guitarist like his dad, and gave it up becoming a financier in the Washington, D.C. area. His daughter
• Judith Ottley, a clarinetist of great talent and the founder and director of Tempo Music Lessons
• Nevilla's father, Neville Ethelbert Ottley (1914-2010) was a lyric tenor, having studied at University of California Riverside with Frank Tavleoni.  Mr. Ottley sang throughout the West Coast in churches and other events.  He sang in Trinidad as a youth till 1945 when he went to the USA, sang while a college student in Michigan, sang in southern California in the 1950s, and in the Caribbean during the 1960s, becoming known for his lyric voice as the "Sweet Singer in Israel".  He sang primarily sacred music, or art songs on nature.
• Nevilla's dad's cousin, Robert Carlton Ruthven Ottley (1914-?) was a noted author of history with at least two dozen published history books as listed in Mitchell's West Indian Bibiography, 9th Edition
• Another cousin of Nevilla, David Ottley was a major bassist in Tobago, and continues now in the UK.
• Another Ottley cousin, Edward Taylor, Jr. is a bass/baritone singer, having performed in Trinidad with the Petite Musicale, and with the Marionettes Chorale.  In the USA, he was a member of the Singing City chorus in Philadelphia, and with them has performed not only with the Philadelphia Orchestra, but also with the New York Philharmonic, the Leningrad, the Israel (under Zubin Mehta), and other famous orchestras.
• On her mother's side of the family, Nevilla's uncle Cecil Gervase Grosvenor (1899-1982) born in Barbados, and was living in Miami, Florida when he died, was an award-winning pianist in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, in his youth. 
• Her aunt Sybil Grosvenor Spann (1903-2004) was a seamstress (like her mother) by trade, a church treasurer, church organist and pianist, children's choir director, and play director, and taught her little sister Myra (born 1914) to play piano,
• Another aunt Edna Grosvenor Davis (1905-1940) went to the New York on a violin scholarship around 1920,
• Her mother, Myra Eloise Grosvenor Ottley (born 1914), born in Trinidad of Barbadian parents, was a contralto singer.  Actually, it was through singing that Nevilla's parents met in their pre-teens, and teamed up as a duo before and after marriage.  Her oldest sister taught her piano as a child, and she continued in Emmanuel Missionary College (now Andrews University) in Michigan with Dr. Beech.  She became Nevilla's first piano teacher.   
• Nevilla's sister, Gerri Ottley Caesar, a nurse by education and occupation is also an alto singer in the recording artists, MetroSingers, and a pannist, teaching and arranger for the youthful Metropolitan Symphony Steel Orchestra II.
• Nevilla's brother Myron S. Ottley, Ph.D. is a scientist, but also a choir director, having begun as a lad to direct vocal ensembles, as a teenager the Golden Tones (about 16 teenage boys singing in 4-8 parts), the Soulseekers (a 30-voice mixed choir of college students that recorded at least 2 records), and the MetroSingers (a 35-voice adult professional choir that has to date 3 DVDs and 3 CDs, having performed in the US and abroad, and televised over 3ABN and Hope Channel).  His son
• Anwar G. M. Ottley is a pipe organist, a teacher at OMS, and a conductor of growing reputation in the Washington DC area, having successfully conducted the Takoma Academy Gospel Choir as a high school student, the Columbia Union College (now the Washington Adventist University's) Black Student Union Chorale in music of Black Composers from the renaissance to the present day for 3 of his 4 college years (from where he graduated as the senior of the year), and now after receiving his Master's degree in conducting at Andrews University in Michigan is the Minister of Music at a large metropolitan church in the Washington, D.C. area.  Anwar's sister
• Jeuelle Melody Ottley Sam is a Physician's Assistant, and a singer, a Praise Team Leader in another large metropolitan church the Washington, D.C. area
• Nevilla's youngest sister Ruby Ottley Anderson, who is a nurse and a singer, has three children who are all musicians of high order, Nathan Anderson (1984-2010), pianist and arranger, worked as a computer tech in the U.S. Public Health Service, was entering medical school, Nicole Anderson, concert pianist, composer, and in law school, Nichelle Anderson, a coloratura soprano and a nurse at NIH.  Nichelle's repertoire when she was just 16 included "Canzona di Doretta" from Puccini's LA RONDINE, performed with Ottley Music School's symphony orchestra.
• Nevilla married Edgar E. K. Adjahoe, a bassoonist and that family from Ghana has its own famed history, the creation of the talking drum.  Their son, Jonathan Christopher Kwame Adjahoe, is a bassist (upright and electric guitar) from his early teens, is a computer networking technologist for the US Gov, and bassist for two large churches in the USA.

It is with musical pride that the Ottley Music School uses its Ottley family crest as its logo (even though there were many slave owners and we believe some slaves among that part of the family), for "God certainly gives increase".