Sir Walford Davies
| Walford Davies | |
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Walford Davies c. 1905
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Henry Walford Davies |
| Born | 6 September 1869 Oswestry, Shropshire, England |
| Died | 11 March 1941 (aged 71) Wrington, North Somerset, England |
| Occupation(s) | Organist, choral conductor, composer, broadcaster |
| Instruments | Pipe organ |
| Associated acts | |
Sir Henry Walford Davies KCVO OBE (6 September 1869 – 11 March 1941) was an English composer, organist, conductor and educator who held the title Master of the King's Music from 1934 until 1941.
Although a performing musician and composer, he served with the Royal Air Force during the First World War when he composed the well known Royal Air Force March Past.
Davies was musical adviser to the nascent British Broadcasting Corporation, and became known to a wide public for his explanatory talks on music between 1924 and 1941, which brought him great popularity with British radio audiences.
Davies was born in the Shropshire town of Oswestry close to the border with Wales. He was the seventh of nine children of John Whitridge Davies and Susan, née Gregory, and the youngest of four surviving sons. It was a musical family: Davies senior, an accountant by profession was a keen amateur musician, who founded and conducted a choral society at Oswestry and was choirmaster of the local Congregational church. Two of his other sons, Charlie and Harold, later held the post of organist at the church; the latter was professor of music at the University of Adelaide from 1919 to 1947. In 1882 Walford was accepted as a chorister at St George's Chapel, Windsor, by the organist, Sir George Elvey.
When his voice broke in 1885 Davies left the choir and later that year was appointed organist of the royal chapel of All Saints, Windsor Great Park and was secretary to Elvey's successor, Walter Parratt, and Dean (later Archbishop) Randall Davidson. At this time British universities, including Cambridge, awarded "non-collegiate" music degrees to any applicant who could pass the necessary examinations. Davies entered for the Cambridge bachelor of music examinations in 1889, but his exercise (a cantata, The Future, to words by Matthew Arnold) failed. With the encouragement of Charles Villiers Stanford, professor of music at Cambridge, Davies made a second attempt; it was successful, and he graduated in 1891.
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