THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. Vaughan Williams,
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.

August 28 [1940]

Dear Bantock

Thank you for your answer to my letter.¹ Can you come to a meeting at the Royal Academy of Music at 2.30 on Wednesday Sept 4?
I have had a promise from Sir Cyril Asquith²  that the case of musicians shall be ‘sympathetically considered’ – So I suggest that we now meet and discuss action & among other things draw up a list of interned musicians. Could you bring your contribution to such a list as complete as possible in detail – If you cannot come would you send your list to me?³
Yrs sincerely

R. Vaughan Williams

1. See VWL1430.  
2. Asquith was a judge who chaired an advisory body for the Home Office on the policy and procedure for the release of internees.
3. As a result of his initative about internees, VW was invited to chair an advisory committee for recommending interned musicians for release on grounds of having made an outstanding contribution to music. See Cobbe, ‘Vaughan Williams, Germany and the German tradition:a view from the letters’ in Alain Frogley (ed.), Vaughan Williams Studies (Cambridge, 1996), p.93-4.