Dock Mathieson

John Davie ("Dock") Mathieson (20 May 19143 December 1985) was a Scottish musician. In between his early and late careers as a teacher, he was a musical director for British films in the 1940s and 1950s. He was instrumental in securing Ralph Vaughan Williams's score for the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic, which the composer later reworked as the Sinfonia antartica. Other films on which Mathieson worked included The Lavender Hill Mob, The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) and The Ladykillers (1955). Life and career Dock Mathieson was born in Stirling, Scotland, on 20 May 1914, the younger of the two sons of John George Mathieson (1880–1955), an artist and engraver, and his wife Jessie née Davie (1884–1954), a violinist, pianist and teacher. His childhood mispronunciation of "Jock" – Scottish for his name, "John" – stuck throughout his life. The Mathiesons' elder son, Muir, became a conductor and musical director in British films, as his brother also did. Jessie ("Jen") Mathieson was a talented musician, who among other engagements foreshadowed her sons' careers by playing the piano accompaniment for silent films at the local cinema. As a teenager Mathieson played in a youth orchestra in Stirling, established and conducted by his brother.

Mathieson trained as a music teacher at the Scottish National Academy of Music, supplemented by violin lessons with Otakar Ševčík in Edinburgh, before winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London. Some of Mathieson's early work was with the director Charles Crichton on Ealing comedies such as The Lavender Hill Mob (1951). He was in charge of the music for The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953), and Alexander Mackendrick's The Maggie (1954). He was later musical director for Out of the Clouds (1955) and Mackendrick’s The Ladykillers (1955), with a score by Tristram Cary.

Like his elder brother, Mathieson was enthusiastic about encouraging young people, and after Ealing Studios closed in 1959 he returned to teaching. For a few years he taught music in Hertfordshire, and having maintained his skills as a string player he supplemented his income by playing in orchestras and at film music sessions.