Composer and music teacher, born in Canterbury, Kent, SE England, UK. Musical librarian to King George IV, he was a friend of the poet Byron, whose Hebrew Melodies (1815) Nathan set to music inspired by Jewish chants. He moved to Australia in 1841, where he became choirmaster of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney. He published Australia the Wide and Free (1842), as well as the first opera to be composed and performed in Australia, Don John of Austria (1847). He also composed a dramatic scena, Leichhardt's Grave, and in 1849 published The Southern Euphrosyne, which included the first harmonizations of aboriginal music.