Early years Henry Walford Davies was born in the Shropshire town of
Oswestry. He was the seventh of nine children of John Whitridge Davies and Susan,
née Gregory, and the youngest of four surviving sons. His father, although an accountant by profession, was an amateur musician who founded and conducted a choral society at Oswestry and was choirmaster of Christ Church
Congregational church: at which Walford was a chorister, and at which Walford's siblings, Charlie and
Harold, later held the post of organist. Harold Davies 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 Castle, 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. 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. His teachers there were
Hubert Parry and (for a single term) Stanford for composition, and
W. S. Rockstro (counterpoint),
Herbert Sharpe (piano) and Haydn Inwards (violin). While still at the RCM he was organist of St George's Church,
Campden Hill, for three months, and
St Anne's Church, Soho for a year until 1891, when he resigned for health reasons. with Lady Davies, Windsor Castle,
National reputation In May 1898 Davies was appointed organist and director of the choir at the
Temple Church in the
City of London, a post he retained until 1923. The work was also given in Australia and the US. During the
First World War Davies joined the Committee for Music in War Time under Parry's chairmanship, organised concerts for the troops in France and musical events for the Fight for Right movement. Since 1930 Walford Davies' "Solemn Melody" has been one of the permanent selection of national airs and mourning music performed on
Remembrance Sunday at
The Cenotaph, Whitehall.
1919–41 (centre) and
Cyril Rootham (right) In 1919 Davies accepted the professorship of music at
University College, Aberystwyth, together with the post of director of music for the
University of Wales and chairman of the National Council of Music. Here, in the words of his biographer Henry Ley, he "laboured unceasingly for the musical enlightenment of the principality", In 1924 he gave the Cramb lectures at the
University of Glasgow, gave his first broadcast talk for the
BBC, and was appointed
Gresham professor of music at the
University of London. Davies wrote his famous piece
God Be In My Head at
Witham Hall, in Lincolnshire, which was the home of a friend. Davies and his wife were the godparents of Bridget Lyons, and who was the wife of the choral musician
Peter Stanley Lyons, who was subsequently the Headmaster of Witham Hall School. After her husband's death, Lady Walford Davies married Julian Harold Legge Lambart, who was Vice-Provost of
Eton College. Davies resigned his professorship at Aberystwyth in 1926, when he was appointed by the BBC as a music adviser, but he remained chairman of the National Council of Music until his death. He was from 1927 to 1932 organist and director of St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Davies's BBC broadcast in April 1924 was the first of many he made between then and 1941. He became well known for his programmes "Music and the Ordinary Listener" (1926–9), his wartime broadcasts for children (1939–41), and "Everyman's Music" (1940–41).
The Musical Times called him "one of the world's first great broadcasters";
The Times, in an obituary tribute said: Colles wrote that Davies's regular listeners felt a proprietorial interest in him, recording one of them as remarking, "He always seemed to come right into the room with us." On the death of
Sir Edward Elgar in 1934, Davies was appointed to succeed him as
Master of the King's Music. As musical adviser to the BBC Davies moved from London to
Bristol when the
BBC Symphony Orchestra and the corporation's music administration moved there on the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Davies died at
Wrington, near Bristol, on 11 March 1941, and his ashes were interred in the graveyard of
Bristol Cathedral. == Compositions ==