Ursula Vaughan Williams

Joan Ursula Penton Vaughan Williams (née Lock, formerly Wood; 15 March 1911 – 23 October 2007) was an English poet and author, and biographer of her second husband, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Biography Early years Ursula Vaughan Williams was born in Valletta, Malta, where her father, Major Robert Lock, was aide de camp to the General officer commanding, Arthur Pole Penton. Lock, later a knighted major-general, was married to Penton’s daughter Kathleen. Ursula was the eldest of their three children, having a younger sister and a younger brother (Robert John Penton), who was killed in Burma in 1944.

Army life entailed frequent moves, and her education was sporadic. She had governesses before attending a day school in England and finishing her schooling in Brussels (1927–28). Neighbour records that she occupied herself with reading, writing poetry, archaeology and amateur dramatics, "and finally escaped to London" in 1932–33 to study at the Old Vic theatre.

First marriage On 24 May 1933 she married Captain John Michael James Forrester Wood of the Royal Artillery at St Clement Danes church, London. Between then and the Second World War she wrote prose and verse and contributed to the BBC and the Times Literary Supplement, while living the peripatetic life of an army wife. The subject did not appeal to him, but through the intercession of Douglas Kennedy he was persuaded to consider another scenario of hers, based on Edmund Spenser's Epithalamion. Author and composer met for lunch in March 1938 and enjoyed each other's company. Despite their both being married, and a four-decade age-gap, they soon began a love affair that lasted secretly for more than a decade. |group=n Whether Adeline knew, or suspected, that Ursula and Vaughan Williams were lovers is uncertain, but the relations between the two women were of warm friendship throughout the years they knew each other. The composer's concern for his first wife never faltered, according to Ursula, who admitted in the 1980s that she had been jealous of Adeline, whose place in Vaughan Williams's life and affections was unchallengeable.

In 1941 her first published book of poems appeared, titled No Other Choice. At Adeline's behest the widowed Ursula was invited to stay with the Vaughan Williamses in Dorking, and thereafter was a regular visitor there, sometimes staying for weeks at a time. The critic Michael White suggests that Adeline "appears, in the most amicable way, to have adopted Ursula as her successor". Ursula recorded that during air raids all three slept in the same room in adjacent beds, holding hands for comfort. In February 1953 Vaughan Williams and Ursula were married. He left the Dorking house and they took a lease of 10 Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, London. After Vaughan Williams's return to live in London, Ursula successfully encouraged him to become much more active socially and in pro bono publico activities. With her support he resumed the composition he had been forced to set aside during his first wife's illness; Ursula wrote the libretto for two of his last choral works, including the cantata for Christmas Hodie. In 1964 she published RVW: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams. She completed her autobiography, Paradise Remembered, in 1972, but it was published only in 2002. and five volumes of poetry. She wrote libretti for other composers, including Herbert Howells, Malcolm Williamson and Elisabeth Lutyens, for example, her "Hymn to St. Cecilia", which was set to music by Howells.