Sir Henry Walford Davies KCVO OBE (6 September 1869 – 11 March 1941) was an English composer, organist, and educator who held the title Master of the King's Music from 1934 until 1941.

[6] When his voice broke in 1885 Davies left the choir and later that year was appointed organist of the Royal Chapel of All Saints, Windsor Great Park and was secretary to Elvey's successor, Walter Parratt, and Dean (later Archbishop) Randall Davidson.

[6] At this time British universities, including Cambridge, awarded "non-collegiate" music degrees to any applicant who could pass the necessary examinations.

[n 1] Davies entered for the Cambridge bachelor of music examinations in 1889, but his exercise (a cantata, The Future, to words by Matthew Arnold) failed.

[9] With the encouragement of Charles Villiers Stanford, professor of music at Cambridge, Davies made a second attempt; it was successful, and he graduated in 1891.

[10] His teachers there were Hubert Parry and (for a single term) Stanford for composition,[11] and W. S. Rockstro (counterpoint), Herbert Sharpe (piano) and Haydn Inwards (violin).

[10] With this appointment, in the view of his biographer, Jeremy Dibble, Davies began to be seen as a prominent figure in British musical life.

[17] Since 1930 Walford Davies' "Solemn Melody" has been one of the permanent selection of national airs and mourning music performed on Remembrance Sunday at The Cenotaph, Whitehall.

[19] Here, in the words of his biographer Henry Ley, he "laboured unceasingly for the musical enlightenment of the principality",[6] and in 1922 he was knighted in David Lloyd George's resignation honours.