Thomas Mervyn Horder, 2nd Baron Horder
Thomas Mervyn Horder was born in London on 8 December 1910. He was the youngest child and only son of Thomas Jeeves Horder, 1st Baron Horder of Ashford, always known as ‘Tommy’, who was created the first Baron Horder of Ashford thanks to his service as physician to several British monarchs and Prime Ministers. Mervyn Horder became the second Baron on the death of his father in 1955, and also inherited the house and gardens which his father had nourished at Ashford Chace, on the hangers outside Petersfield, near Steep. After studies at Winchester College and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read classics, in the early 1930s Mervyn Horder attended the Guildhall School of Music, studying principally composition; he had also become a more than competent pianist. Possibly under pressure from his demanding father, though, Horder opted not to make music his profession, becoming instead a publisher, and by 1938 he was on the board of the small publishing firm of Duckworth.[1]
Then came the War. Before it, Horder had acquired some flying experience, learning to fly the newly-invented machine called an AutoGyro, a curious combination of light aircraft and helicopter. He was therefore accepted into the RAF Reserve, and saw service first of all forecasting the flight paths of German bombers, then working in Intelligence in India, Ceylon (as it then was) and finally Japan. He attained the rank of Wing Commander. Soon after the War he returned to publishing and eventually became Managing Director of Duckworth’s. He was also married, to a singer, Mary Ross McDougall, but the marriage did not last and ended in divorce. Thereafter Mervyn remained a confirmed bachelor. He sold Ashford Chace in 1958 but retained an interest, having first of all commissioned the building, in the large grounds, of a small modernist studio house designed by his architect nephew Edward Cullinan, where he could devote himself to playing and composing. During the working week he lived in a tiny mews house in St John's Wood, near Lord’s Cricket Ground, taking increasingly little care of himself and even becoming slightly eccentric. He eventually sold his controlling interest in Duckworth’s in 1968.
Music then took over as the main interest in his life. He composed mainly songs, both serious and comic, setting words from authors as diverse as Shakespeare and A.E. Housman, John Betjeman and Dorothy Parker. He wrote a ballet, The Unicorn in the Garden, as well as many carols and hymn-tunes and music for solo piano and piano duet.
Mervyn Horder died on 3 July 1997 aged 86. His will directed that his ashes “be scattered from the top of The Tower Windmill, Burnham Overy Staithe in Norfolk, in a high wind.” His wishes were duly observed by his relatives.
Writings
Books
The Little Genius (1966), a biography of his father
On Their Own - Shipwrecks and Survivals (1988)
Anthologies (as compiler and editor)
Ronald Firbank, Memories & Critiques
In Praise of Norfolk
In Praise of Cambridge
In Praise of Oxford
The Best of Dorothy Parker
Articles and Reviews
in The Bookseller, London Magazine, Blackwood's Magazine, Cornhill Magazine, The Spectator, Private Eye, etc.
Prefaces and Introductions
to editions of John Dundas Cochrane, Richard Henry Dana, Jr.., Johann Dietz, Maupassant, Dame Edith Sitwell, Anthony Trollope
Music
at least 115 vocal settings, i.e. solo and unison songs, choral pieces, etc.
These include settings, sometimes grouped in cycles, of Auden, Barnes, Betjeman, Belloc, Bridges, Burns, Charles Causley, Chesterton, Walter de la Mare, Eleanor Farjeon, Robert Herrick, A. P. Herbert, A. E. Housman, Rudyard Kipling, Dorothy Parker, Shakespeare, Tennyson, W. B. Yeats
Norfolk Dances, for string orchestra
Hampshire Days, for string orchestra
Unicorn in the Garden, ballet, first performed by Harlequin Ballet Company, 12 April 1965
The Orange Carol Book (1962)
A Book of Love Songs (1969)
The Easter Carol Book (1982)
References
- ↑ Woolf at the Door, by J. Jolliffe, pub. Duckworth & Co., 1993
Sources
Obituaries in The Times,[1] Daily Telegraph (8 July 1997), The Independent,[2] Who Was Who
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