Stuart Kilby Kay was born in 1886, and attended Penistone Grammar School until the age of 18. He was a student at the University of Sheffield from 1905 to 1907, after which he became a private music student and later assistant organist to Wilfred Sanderson at Doncaster Parish Church until 1910.

From 1911 to 1914, he was organist at the Congregational Church in Cleveleys, Lancashire, and then joined up for army service in the Royal Army Medical Corps. In 1918, he was transferred to the Army Education Corps as a music instructor based at Kitchener Hospital in Brighton.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Kay was a schoolmaster at Hove High School, a private music tutor and an amateur composer; and in the 1940s and 1950s he was organist and choirmaster at the Congregational Church in Haywards Heath and at All Saints Church in Lindfield.

Stuart Kilby Kay died in 1962.