Henry Walford Davies: BBC Schools Service Oswestry composer

Yet it is only a century ago today that an Oswestry-born musician played a key role in the launch of the BBC Schools Service which brought classical music to children across Britain.

Walford Davies' first words on air were immortalised for a generation of children as he uttered “Well children, I did promise you an attractive piece by Brahms, but Mr Dixon has just sat on it" after his producer sat on the record.

Henry Walford Davies was born a half century before the advent of radio in Oswestry on September 6, 1869 and soon showed his aptitude for music. 

He would spend the next 50 years honing his craft as a composer, musician and lecturer at the Royal College of Music while also becoming an organist of some renown.

His most famous work, the RAF March Past, remains popular to this day.

In 1919 he became professor of music at Aberystwyth University and over the next decade became a leading exponent of Welsh music and culture which earned him a knighthood and a place on the fledgling BBC Radio until the outbreak of World War Two in 1939.

Inform, educate, entertain were the three main pillars for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) from its founding in 1922.

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Arthur Burrows, the first ever Director of Programmes said in early 1923: “Shortly we are commencing afternoon programmes in the provinces… in which case of course, the way is paved for a very important development in the use of wireless for instruction in the schools.”

An experimental lesson for a single school in Glasgow came first, then Friday, 4 April 1924 saw Walford Davies’ initial broadcast for schools, Music and School Life, transmit live at 3pm.

From 1929, the BBC’s educational content was guided by the Schools Broadcasting Council for the United Kingdom.

They emphasised the need for children across the nations of the UK to have programming specific to their area and culture.

It led to programming such as the Welsh language Ar Grwydr yng Nghymru (Wanderings in Wales), a radio series for older primary children in Wales, which aired from the 1940s into the 1970s.

Sir Henry Walford Davies died in 1941 and a memorial plaque was installed on Christ Church URC in Oswestry where he sang in the church choir as a boy.