THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

13 Cheyne Walk
Chelsea, S.W.

[c. September 1924]

Dear Dent

I’ve written to the V.C.¹ with great pleasure – you are the one person I want to see in that post. You’ve never had your deserts yet. I hear a rumour (confidential) that they may appoint C.W.² and offer you a readership. – I do hope you w^d pocket the insult & and accept it, if this be so – Because, to my mind, you w^d then be professor de facto tho’ not de jure – & it w^d be splendid for Cambridge.³
Yrs very sincerely

R. Vaughan Williams

1. Vice-Chancellor (of Cambridge University), Sir Albert Charles Seward.
2. Charles Wood, who was in fact appointed Professor on this occasion. Dent became Professor two years later in 1926 following Wood’s death in July of that year. See also VWL558. to T.H. Marshall, in which VW explains why he himself had not stood for the post.
3. If this was offered Dent did not accept it but remained in London until he succeeded Wood.