He played in several orchestras, including the Philharmonic Society, the Queen’s Hall Orchestra and Covent Garden. He played a lot for Henry Wood in The Proms. In orchestras he nearly always played fourth horn, so his nickname was “George IV”. In 1904 he became a founding member of the London Symphony Orchestra. The four horn players in that orchestra: Adolf Borsdorf, Thomas Busby, Henri Van der Meerschen and A.E. Brain, were often called “God’s Own Quartet” because they blended together so well.