Though Frederick Ellard spent much of the 1840s in Melbourne and London, Sydney remained the base of his activities. His first published composition was The Sydney Corporation Quadrilles (1842) which, like most of his other works of the 1840s, was published by the Ellard family business. He also became one of the city's leading cellists and piano teachers, and, during the last 20 years of his life, a singing teacher.
