Tomlinson was born in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, England, into a musical family, one of four children to Fred Tomlinson Sr and May Tomlinson. His younger brother, Fred Tomlinson, also a musician, founded The Fred Tomlinson Singers and performed the music for Monty Python'sFlying Circus. At the age of nine he became a chorister at Manchester Cathedral, where he was eventually appointed as Head Boy in 1939. He later attended Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School and at sixteen won a scholarship to Manchester University and the Royal Manchester College of Music. He spent the next two years studying composition until in 1943 he left to join the Royal Air Force, where, although colour-blind, he became a wireless mechanic and saw service in France during 1944 and 1945. He returned to England in 1945 to resume his studies and graduated in 1947, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Music for composition as well as being made a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists and an Associate of the Royal Manchester College of Music. Tomlinson left northern England for London, where he worked as a staff arranger for Arcadia and Mills Music Publishers, providing scores for radio and television broadcasts as well as for the stage and recording studios. He continued his interest in the organ by taking up a post at a Mayfair church. Tomlinson had his first piece broadcast by the BBC in 1949 and by 1955 he had formed his own orchestra, the "Ernest Tomlinson Light Orchestra". From 1951 to 1953, he was musical director of the Chingford Amateur Dramatic and Operatic Society. In 1976, he took over the directorship of the RossendaleMale Voice Choir from his father, a post he held for five years, during which the choir won their class for three years in the BBC's "Grand Sing" competition. He was also the founder of the Northern Concert Orchestra, with whom he gave numerous broadcasts and concerts. He was a chief consultant for the Marco Polo Records label, and was featured a number of times on Brian Kay's Light Programme. In 1984, after discovering that the BBC were disposing of their light music archive, Tomlinson founded The Library of Light Orchestral Music, which is housed in a barn at his family's farmhouse near Longridge in Lancashire. The library currently contains around 50,000 pieces, including many items that would otherwise have been lost. Tomlinson and his wife Jean were married from 1949 until her death in September 2006. The couple had four children, Ann, Geoffrey, Hilary and Linda. Tomlinson's four children, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren survive him.
Tomlinson was primarily known as a composer of light orchestral pieces and produced a considerable body of works ranging from overtures, suites and rhapsodies and miniatures, of which Little Serenade and Cantilena are probably the most popular. Also notable are a number of English folk-dance arrangements. In the 1960s, he wrote a number of Test Card pieces such as Stately Occasion and the tongue-in-cheekCapability Brown. His Fantasia on Auld Lang Syne in its 20 minutes weaves in 152 quotations from pieces by other composers. Tomlinson also worked on larger-scale forms, including several works in symphonic jazz style, such as Sinfonia '62, which won an Italian competition for "Rhythmic-Symphonic" works. Also notable are two symphonies, three concertos - including his Cornet Concerto performed by Maurice Murphy, his Rhapsody and Rondo for horn and orchestra (premiered by Dennis Brain, a one-act opera Head of the Family, a Festival of Song for chorus and orchestra and numerous works for choirs, brass bands and concert bands. In 1966, Tomlinson conducted his Symphony '65, in the Tchaikovsky Hall, Moscow, played by the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra and Big Band, which was the first time a symphonic jazz work had been heard in Russia.
