[1] Evelyn Rothwell was born 24 January 1911 in Wallingford-on-Thames,[2] Berkshire, the daughter of a tea dealer in the City of London.
She did not take up the oboe until she was 17, when she started to learn at her school, Downe House, near Newbury, under the headship of Olive Willis.
She was soon appointed second oboe with the Covent Garden touring company, which was conducted by John Barbirolli.
Several composers dedicated works to her, including Arnold Cooke, Stephen Dodgson, Arthur Benjamin, Gordon Jacob, Edmund Rubbra and Elizabeth Maconchy.
Rothwell occasionally played in the orchestra, although she kept her appearances there to a minimum to avoid charges of nepotism.
However she was one of the wind players who showed up for Charles MacKerras's much celebrated midnight 1959 recording of the Royal Fireworks Music for Pye using Handel's original orchestration including a serpent.
She wrote the books Oboe Technique and the three-volume Oboist's Companion, and her autobiography Living with Glorious John.
She was awarded an honorary MA by Leeds University in 1972 and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1984.