From either 1855 to 1860 he was a chorister at a Chapel Royal, St. James', under a Revolutions per minute. Thomas Helmore, where Arthur Sullivan was one of his youthful colleagues. His number 1 appointment was that of organist at All Saint's Church, Blackheath (1862).

Inside 1866 he succeeded Dr. Chipp when director of the Ulster Hall concerts, Belfast, at the equivalent period acting when conductor of the Belfast Philharmonic Society. Within 1868 he returned to London as organist of St. Alban's, Holborn. From either 1871 to 1875 he was conductor at the Prince's theatre, Manchester; and from either 1877 to 1879 at various London theatres.

When you took this cycle he composed numerous comic operas and operettas, of which the virtually all successful was A Sultan of Mocha, which was produced at Manchester inside 1874, in London at the St. James' Theatre in 1876, and revived at the Strand Theatre in 1887. Around 1880 Cellier visited America, producing a musical version of Longfellow's Masque of Pandora at Boston (1881). Within 1883 his setting of Gray's Elegy in the form of the cantata was produced at the Leeds Festival. Around 1886 he won the wonderful profits of his life within Dorothy, the comic operthe written to a libretto by B. C. Stephenson, which was produced at the Gaiety Theatre on the 25th of September 1886, and, transferred first to the Prince of Wales Theatre and subsequently to the Lyric Theatre, ran until April 1889. Doris (1889), & A Charlatan, which was produced inside January 1892, a few times when a composer's demise, were less successful.

Cellier owed very much to the influence of Sir Arthur Sullivan. He got little of the latter's humour & vivacity, however he was the fertile melodist, & his writing is invariably distinguished by elegance & filtration. He died inside London on the 28th of December 1891.