Eric Fenby

Eric William Fenby OBE (22 April 1906 – 18 February 1997) was an English composer, conductor, pianist, organist and teacher who is best known for being Frederick Delius's amanuensis from 1928 to 1934.

In 1928, hearing that Delius had become virtually helpless because of blindness and paralysis (due to syphilis), he offered to serve him as an amanuensis.

Fenby worked, at the composer's home in Grez-sur-Loing, near Paris, for extended periods until Delius died almost six years later.

Further responsibilities followed, including visiting Delius's severely ill widow, Jelka Rosen, and accompanying the composer's exhumed body back to England for burial.

He was contracted to write the score for Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn, (from Daphne du Maurier's novel), but his film career was interrupted by the Second World War.

He is buried with his wife Rowena in the churchyard of St Laurence's Church, Scalby, a village on the north edge of Scarborough.

Fenby was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1962 for his artistic direction of the 1962 Delius Centenary Festival in Bradford.