Joan Ursula Penton Vaughan Williams (née Lock, formerly Wood; 15 March 1911 – 23 October 2007) was an English poet and author, and biographer of her second husband, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Ursula Vaughan Williams | |
|---|---|
 Ursula and Ralph Vaughan Williams on their wedding day in 1953 | |
| Born | Joan Ursula Penton Lock 15 March 1911 Valletta, Malta |
| Died | 23 October 2007 (aged 96) London, England |
| Occupation(s) | Poet and author |
| Spouses | |
| Parent(s) | Sir Robert Lock Kathleen Beryl Penton |
| Relatives | Arthur Pole Penton (grandfather) |
Biography
editEarly years
editUrsula Vaughan Williams was born in Valletta, Malta, where her father, Major Robert Lock, was aide de camp to the General officer commanding, Arthur Pole Penton. Lock, later a knighted major-general, was married to Penton’s daughter Kathleen. Ursula was the eldest of their three children, having a younger sister and a younger brother (Robert John Penton), who was killed in Burma in 1944.[1][2]
Army life entailed frequent moves, and her education was sporadic. She had governesses before attending a day school in England and finishing her schooling in Brussels (1927–28).[1] By then her father was stationed in England, as commandant of the experimental station at Porton Down. The musicologist Oliver Neighbour writes that after moving from Brussels "she passed the next four years, horribly bored and reacting sharply against the social round in which she was expected to take part".[3] Neighbour records that she occupied herself with reading, writing poetry, archaeology and amateur dramatics, "and finally escaped to London" in 1932–33 to study at the Old Vic theatre.[3] While a student there she was able to attend some performances free of charge, and one evening she saw Job, a ballet by Ninette de Valois with a score by Ralph Vaughan Williams. It was a memorable experience that remained in her mind. She later said it "opened a new world to me".[4]
First marriage
editOn 24 May 1933 she married Captain John Michael James Forrester Wood of the Royal Artillery at St Clement Danes church, London.[5] Between then and the Second World War she wrote prose and verse and contributed to the BBC and the Times Literary Supplement, while living the peripatetic life of an army wife.[1] In 1937 she sent Vaughan Williams – whom she had not met – a ballet scenario she had written about the Ballad of Margaret and Clark Saunders.[6] The subject did not appeal to him, but through the intercession of Douglas Kennedy he was persuaded to consider another scenario of hers, based on Edmund Spenser's Epithalamion.[7] Author and composer met for lunch in March 1938 and enjoyed each other's company. Despite their both being married, and a four-decade age-gap, they soon began a love affair that lasted secretly for more than a decade.[8] Ursula became the composer's muse, helper and London companion, and later helped him care for his ailing wife, Adeline, who had arthritis so severe as to confine her to the house in Dorking where she and her husband had lived since 1929.[n 1] Whether Adeline knew, or suspected, that Ursula and Vaughan Williams were lovers is uncertain, but the relations between the two women were of warm friendship throughout the years they knew each other. The composer's concern for his first wife never faltered, according to Ursula, who admitted in the 1980s that she had been jealous of Adeline, whose place in Vaughan Williams's life and affections was unchallengeable.[8]
In 1941 her first published book of poems appeared, titled No Other Choice.[1] The following year Michael Wood died suddenly on 8 June 1942 of heart failure aged 41.[10] At Adeline's behest the widowed Ursula was invited to stay with the Vaughan Williamses in Dorking, and thereafter was a regular visitor there, sometimes staying for weeks at a time. The critic Michael White suggests that Adeline "appears, in the most amicable way, to have adopted Ursula as her successor".[11] Ursula recorded that during air raids all three slept in the same room in adjacent beds, holding hands for comfort.[11] In 1943 she published a second volume of poems, Fall of Leaf.[1]
Marriage to Vaughan Williams
editAdeline died in 1951, aged eighty.[12] In February 1953 Vaughan Williams and Ursula were married.[n 2] He left the Dorking house and they took a lease of 10 Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, London.[14] After Vaughan Williams's return to live in London, Ursula successfully encouraged him to become much more active socially and in pro bono publico activities. With her support he resumed the composition he had been forced to set aside during his first wife's illness; Ursula wrote the libretto for two of his last choral works, including the cantata for Christmas Hodie.[1]
Vaughan Williams died in 1958. Following his death his widow moved to Gloucester Crescent near Regent's Park, London.[15][n 3] In 1964 she published RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams. She completed her autobiography, Paradise Remembered, in 1972, but did not publish it until 2002.[3] She wrote four novels, including Set to Partners (1968) and The Yellow Dress (1984),[17] and five volumes of poetry. She wrote libretti for other composers, including Herbert Howells, Malcolm Williamson and Elisabeth Lutyens, for example, her "Hymn to St. Cecilia", which was set to music by Howells.[1][3]
Until her death in London at the age of 96 she was honorary president of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society. She was also the president of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. Her funeral was held at St John's Wood Church.[18]
Bibliography
edit- The Complete Poems of Ursula Vaughan Williams
- RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams by Ursula Vaughan Williams
- There was a time... A pictorial journey from the collection of Ursula Vaughan Williams
- Paradise Remembered (autobiography)
- The Collected Poems of Ursula Vaughan Williams
Notes, references and sources
editNotes
edit- ^ Ralph and Adeline Vaughan Williams had previously lived at Cheyne Walk in London until the numerous stairs in their house became too much for her and caused them to move to a more manageable home, "The White Gates", Dorking. Vaughan Williams, who thought of himself as a complete Londoner, was sorry to leave the capital, but his wife was anxious to live in the country, and Dorking was within reasonably convenient reach of town.[9]
- ^ There were no children of the marriage.[13]
- ^ In Gloucester Crescent her neighbours included Alan Bennett. She appears as a character in Bennett's autobiographical play and film The Lady in the Van; in the film she is played by Frances de la Tour.[16]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g "Ursula Vaughan Williams", The Daily Telegraph, 25 October 2007, p. 29
- ^ "Casualty Details: Lock, Robert John Penton". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
- ^ a b c d Neighbour, Oliver. Ursula Vaughan Williams", The Guardian, 25 October 2007
- ^ McCray, James. "Collaboration: Ursula and Ralph Vaughan Williams", The Choral Journal, February 1993, pp. 9–11 (subscription required)
- ^ "Marriages", The Times, 11 April 1933, p. 17; and "Weddings and Engagements", The Tatler, 26 April 1933, p. x
- ^ Vaughan Williams, p. 218
- ^ Vaughan Williams, pp. 218–219
- ^ a b Neighbour, pp. 337–338 and 345
- ^ Vaughan Williams, pp. 171 and 179
- ^ "Casualty Details: Wood, John Michael James". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 18 November 2024.
- ^ a b White, Michael. "The merry widow", The Daily Telegraph, 4 May 2002, p. 62
- ^ "Obituary", The Times, 12 May 1951, p. 8
- ^ "Vaughan Williams, Ralph", Who's Who, Oxford University Press, 2007 (subscription required)
- ^ Vaughan Williams, p. 331
- ^ Letter from Ursula Vaughan Williams to Alan Bush – Letter No.: VWL3696 – The Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams database
- ^ "The Lady in the Van", British Film Institute. Retrieved 24 February 2024
- ^ Robert Ponsonby (25 October 2007). "Obituary: Ursula Vaughan Williams". The Independent. Retrieved 29 October 2007.
- ^ Carrier, Dan (8 November 2007). "Hundreds pay tribute to Vaughan Williams". Camden New Journal. Retrieved 25 December 2016.
Sources
edit- Neighbour, Oliver (August 2008). "Ralph, Adeline, and Ursula Vaughan Williams: Some Facts and Speculation". Music & Letters. 89 (3): 337–345. doi:10.1093/ml/gcn042. JSTOR 30162996. (subscription required)
- Vaughan Williams, Ursula (1964). RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-315411-7.