This is nothing more than a stab in the dark, but it occurs to me that
references to _playing_ music--a necessary prerequisite for composing it--
often revolve around females playing instruments (obviously, primarily the
piano). Could it be that British male children were less likely to learn music
since it was perceived as a feminine pursuit throughout the 18th and early
19th centuries? It seems too simplistic an explanation, but I have noticed
that most references to music performance involve females. If it were the case,
they possibly would have been encouraged to _re_produce rather than compose
anything new. That said, there _were_ women composers in the period whose
names didn't make into the musical canon, but whose work is being researched
now by music historians and occasionally performed in concert in the U.S.
Lynn Schibeci