Percy Buck

• Born — 25 March 1871 • Birthplace — West Ham, London, England • Died — 3 October 1947 • Place of death — Hindhead, Surrey, England • Spouse — Lucy Bond • Children — 5 • Alma Mater — * Merchant Taylors' School • Guildhall School of Music • Royal College of Music • Workplaces — * Worcester College, Oxford • Trinity College, Dublin • Royal College of Music • University of London

Percy Buck was born in West Ham, London, and studied at Merchant Taylors' School, the Guildhall School of Music under Charles Joseph Frost (1848-1918) and Francis Davenport, and then at Royal College of Music, where his teachers were Walter Parratt, C.H. Lloyd, Hubert Parry and John Arthur St. Oswald Dykes.

From 1891 until 1894 he was organ scholar at Worcester College, Oxford, where he became friends with William Henry Hadow, Classics Tutor there at the time, who became the first editor of the Oxford History of Music in 1896. Buck was appointed organist at Wells Cathedral (1896–99), then Bristol Cathedral (1899–1901). He became director of music at Harrow School in 1901 and held that post until 1927. While at Harrow, Buck served on the editorial board of the ten-volume anthology Tudor Church Music. From 1910 to 1920, Buck was Professor of Music at Trinity College, Dublin; this was a non-residential post, succeeding Ebenezer Prout. His pupils during this period included Ina Boyle. In 1919 Sir Hugh Allen invited him to join the staff of the Royal College of Music, where he set up a teacher's training course, contributing his own lectures on psychology. In 1925, Buck became the King Edward Professor of Music in the University of London. In 1926 he started the RCM Junior Department with Miss Angela Bull, a "feeder system" for students financed by the London County Council. Several successful students have gone through this program and it continues to this day. From 1927 to 1936, he was music adviser to the London County Council, where he developed new facilities for further training of children with special talent, and where he overhauled the music in the curriculum of schools. Buck received a knighthood in 1937 on retiring from the University of London, while continuing his duties at the Royal College, supervising teachers and taking the occasional composition student, including Madeleine Dring for two years from 1938.

Buck married, on 9th April 1896 at Christ Church, Broadway, Westminster, Lucy Bond, daughter of the surgeon Thomas Bond. She died in 1940, aged 68. There were three sons (one killed in World War I) and two daughters. During his time at Harrow, Buck began a clandestine and long-term (17 year) relationship with Sylvia Townsend Warner, whose father was a History master at the school. He was 41, she was 19. From 1917 Warner, who was to pursue a career as a poet and novelist after the publication of her first novel, Lolly Willowes in 1926, also worked as one of the editors of Tudor Church Music. Percy Buck died at the Stoneycrest Nursing Home, Hindhead, Surrey, after a short illness.