Bainton, born in London, taught piano and composition at the Newcastle Conservatoire from 1901, and later became principal when the institution moved to 72 Jesmond Road. He was appointed conductor of the Newcastle Philharmonic Orchestra in 1910. From 1919, he gave five lectures at the Lit and Phil, the first being entitled 'My Four and a Half Years as a Prisoner of War' . Bainton had been arrested at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth in August 1914, and interned at Ruhleben racecourse near Berlin. He was put in charge of music in the camp and, incredibly, managed to present a wide range of work, including performances of Verdi's requiem and Handel's Messiah (all male). A chamber orchestra was nicknamed 'Bainton's Magpies'. Over a hundred plays were staged in the camp and Bainton supplied music for some of these. While Bainton was in Germany, his wife Ethel had kept the Conservatoire going single-handed.
Of musicians associated with the Conservatoire, Alfred Wall was a fine violinist in the city for many years and Elsie Winstanley accompanied the likes of Kathleen Ferrier, Owen Brannigan (qq.v.) and Paul Robeson. She also played the major concertos with the Newcastle Philharmonic, and later had a hand in the formation of the Northern Sinfonia, Britain's first and still only permanent full-time chamber orchestra. Olive Chandler was the leader of the orchestra, and recalls Sir Henry Wood personally ensuring that every one of the instrumentalists was in tune. One of Bainton's pupils, incidentally, was Elinor Brent-Dyer, the South Shields author of the Chalet School books. She dedicated her book The School by the River to him.
Edgar Bainton was also a prolific composer and his anthem 'And I Saw a New Heaven' was performed movingly in Liverpool's Anglican cathedral during the Hillsborough memorial service in 1989. Among his many other works, was a viola sonata; Lionel Tertis (q.v.) came to Jesmond to try it over. Bainton eventually left Newcastle in 1933 to pursue a distinguished career in Australia.