Carr was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England. His parents were George Saxton Carr, a schoolmaster and Margaret Durden Carr, née Painter. He attended New College, Oxford, and Downing College, Cambridge, receiving a B.A. degree in 1883 and apparently returning to Oxford to receive a music degree there in 1884. He continued his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, earning a Cambridge M.A. and B.Mus. in 1886 and gained a doctorate in music at Oxford in 1891. in Carr's His Excellency Carr's first produced work was the burlesqueFaddimir, or the Triumph of Orthodoxy at the Vaudeville Theatre in London in 1889, which gained the attention of producer George Edwardes. Edwardes began to commission songs from Carr and Ross, including a song for his next Gaiety Theatre burlesque Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué. They next wrote the score for a burlesque of Joan of Arc, or, The merry maid of Orleans, and then the songs for what many historians consider the first British musical comedy, In Town. Carr also composed another burlesque that year, Blue Eyed Susan, for the Prince of Wales Theatre. Carr next composed two successful musicals for producer Fred Harris: Morocco Bound, a model for the music-hall-influenced "variety musicals" to come, and Go-Bang, both with lyrics by Ross. 1n 1894, Edwardes engaged Carr to write the music for His Excellency, a comic opera with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. This was a moderate success and enjoyed international productions. Carr's musicals in the late 1890s, included Billy, My Girl, Biarritz, a vehicle for Little Tich called Lord Tom Noddy, Thrillby to a book by Joseph W. Herbert and The Maid of Athens. All were unsuccessful, although a number of individual songs from these musicals became popular, and some toured the British provinces. Carr's post-1900 pieces included The Southern Belle, The Rose of the Riviera, Miss Mischief and The Scottish Bluebells, all of which had at least a provincial success, but he never regained his early popularity. Carr also wrote many separate songs and some instrumental pieces. He also produced the score for a ballet produced at the Empire Theatre in 1907 called Sir Roger de Coverley. He retired to the country in 1916 but almost immediately died of a heart attack in Uxbridge, Middlesex, England, at the age of 58.
