Harold Fraser-Simson

Harold Fraser-Simson (15 August 1872 – 19 January 1944), was an English composer of light music, including songs and the scores to musical comedies. His most famous musical was the World War I hit, The Maid of the Mountains, and he later set numerous children's poems to music, especially those of A. A. Milne.

Fraser-Simson was born in London, the second child and eldest son of an East Indies merchant, Arthur Theodore Simson and his wife, Jane Anne Catherine née Fraser, of Reelig, Scotland. He was educated at Charterhouse School, then at Dulwich College, then at King's College London and in France. As a young man he joined a ship-owning firm in London before turning to music as a full-time occupation in his early forties.

Fraser-Simson published his first song, "My Sweet Sweeting", in 1907. His first theatre score was for the 1911 musical Bonita, with a libretto by Walter Wadham Peacock, which played at Queen's Theatre.

Fraser-Simson's biggest success was the score for the operetta The Maid of the Mountains, which played at Daly's Theatre in London in 1917 and finally closed after 1,352 performances. This was, at the time, a phenomenal run second only to that of Chu Chin Chow. Several songs from this work (not all of them by Fraser-Simson) have remained "standards" ever since. Fraser-Simson's best-known songs for this show included "Love will Find a Way", "Farewell" and "Husbands and Wives".The Maid of the Mountains has been frequently revived by both professional and amateur groups and was filmed in 1932. It was one of the three most important musical hits of the London stage during World War I (the other two being a revue, The Bing Boys Are Here and the musical Chu Chin Chow). Music or scenes from all of these have been included as background in many films set in this period, and they remain intensely evocative of the "Great War" years. Audiences wanted light and uplifting entertainment during the war, and these shows delivered it.

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