THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

The White Gates
Dorking

Nov 9th [1939]

Dear Dr Shergold

I venture to send you a few notices of our “Federal Union” meeting and a few pamphlets in case you have not already seen them.¹ If you are in sympathy with the idea I do hope you will be able to come. Could you possibly help us by making the meeting known to your church members
Yrs sincerely
R Vaughan Williams

1. The meeting, on December 2nd 1939, was reported in the Dorking Advertiser:

” FEDERAL UNION. INAUGURAL MEETING OF DORKING BRANCH.
“POLITICAL ISSUE OF OUR GENERATION,”
The aims of the Federal Union movement were explained at quite a well attended meeting at the
Friends’ Meeting House on Saturday afternoon, held in connection with the inauguration of the
Dorking and District Branch. Dr. R. Vaughan Williams, who presided, informed the meeting to how the local branch came to be formed. […] Dr. Vaughan Williams said he was in favour of Federal Union because he was by temperament a strong nationalist. I believe that love of one’s country, love of one’s institutions, customs, language, and so on are something inirradicable [sic] in the human heart. But I do further believe that this can only come to its full stature when it is merged into a wider loyalty – loyalty to one’s fellow beings as a whole,” he added. His belief was, he went on, that when this Federation was achieved it would be the duty of every nation to bring to it the best it had to be used for the common good.”