David Vaughan Thomas attended the College in the late 1880s and won a scholarship to study mathematics at Oxford, where he played a prominent role in university musical life. He taught music at various schools, including Harrow, before returning to Wales in 1906, where he worked as a freelance composer, teacher and adjudicator. Vaughan Thomas is the only Llandoverian to be awarded a Doctorate in Music, and he was one of the most important composers of his time.
He became an overseas examiner for Trinity College, London in 1927, and often travelled to exotic locations, as his colourfully written diaries make clear. He was an expert on Welsh folksong and medieval Welsh poetic metres, of which he was a skilful translator into English. He was also an accomplished poet. He was the father of the distinguished broadcaster and writer Wynford Vaughan Thomas. |
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