William Davies(1921-2006)

Born in Bolton, Lancashire in 1921, William Davies began in 1950 as an arranger and his early work includes adaptations of Welsh and Irish traditional melodies such as "All Through the Night" and the "Londonderry Air." After much scoring for BBC radio he entered the film industry in 1956 with a number of B-movie scores for British Lion. Additionally, his television stock music was utilized in numerous U.S. series, notably Mr. Magoo, Ozzie and Harriet and The Ann Sothern Show. In the early 1960s Davies became musical director for former ITV company Southern Television, and he specialized in children's tv-scores such as Little Bigtime, The Pingwings, Noggin The Nog and Ivor the Engine. He also scored for the Children's Film Foundation, and later did music for BBC television, including America, The Tuesday Documentary and Time for a Song. In 1992 he went to Germany to re-score the 1919 Ernst Lubitsch classic The Oyster Princess, the composer's last score to date before retiring to his home near Hastings.