8th December 2015 Harold Malcolm was born in 1895 in Ashford , Kent, while his mother was visiting relations. ( In the 1901 and 1911 Census his birth place has been entered as Stamford . ) In 1911 he was 16 and living at 24 Wharf Road, Stamford with his parents Henry Edward and Agnes Marion (nee Hall ) and his sister, Dorothy Marion (12). His father and sister were born in Stamford. His mother was born in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. Her parents had moved to Peterborough by 1881. His mother was employed in Stamford for at least ten years as servant/maid at Stamford High School in St. Martins (1881-1891). His father was a coal merchant’s clerk. In 1901 the family had been living at 4 St Alban’s Terrace , Stamford. Malcolm gained a scholarship to Stamford School in 1907. Here he would have received a musical education, but music would also have been a feature of his home life because his father was an amateur choirmaster and organist at St John’s Church. Malcolm himself studied piano and organ and sang in a number of choirs. At the age of 16 he became Haydn Keeton’s assistant as organist at Peterborough Cathedral until 1914. From 1914 to 1924 he was titular organist at St. Mary’s Church, Melton Mowbray. During this period he was also studying musicology at Durham. His studies, however, were interrupted by military service. He was attested in Melton Mowbrary in 1916 and enlisted on 10th May 1918. His address then was Manor House, Burton St., Melton Mowbray. His father, who was registered as his next-of-kin, had moved to 11 All Saints’ Street, Stamford. Malcolm was mobilised in Leicester on 9th May 1918 and on 11th May posted with the Durham Light Infantry to Herne Bay. He was demobilised on 19th January 1919. Malcolm graduated from Durham University in 1919. His long and noted musical career began with an invitation from Henry Wood to conduct at a Promenade Concert at the Queen’s Hall in 1921 and from 1923 he had decided to concentrate on conducting. Malcolm Sargent Plaque Malcolm Sargent In 1923, Sargent married Eileen Laura Harding Horne, daughter of Frederic Horne of Drinkstone, Suffolk. By 1926, the couple had two children, a daughter Pamela who was to die of polio in 1944, and a son Peter. Sargent was much affected by his daughter’s death. His marriage ended in divorce in 1947 In 1932 he suffered a near-fatal attack of tuberculosis not returning to his musical career until 1934. He was knighted in 1947 for his services to music. He died in Westminster on 3rd October 1967 and was buried in Stamford Cemetery. The house in Stamford where he spent his early years is marked by a blue plaque. The Malcolm Sargent Primary School also recalls his association with the town. The Stamford Choral Society in conjunction with pupils from the Stamford Endowed Schools hold a concert in his memory every three years. Malcolm Sargent Grave The Times obituary said of Sir Malcolm Sargent “was of all British conductors in his day the most widely esteemed by the lay public… a fluent, attractive pianist, a brilliant score-reader, a skilful and effective arranger and orchestrator… as a conductor his stick technique was regarded by many as the most accomplished and reliable in the world…. [H]is taste… was moulded by the Victorian cathedral tradition into which he was born.” It commented that, in his later years, his interpretations of the standard classical and romantic repertoire were “prepared… down to the last detail” but sometimes “unexuberant”, though his performances of “the music composed within his lifetime… remained lucid and continually compelling. The flute player Gerald Jackson wrote, “I feel that [Walton] conducts his own music as well as anyone else, with the possible exception of Sargent, who of course introduced and always makes a big thing of Belshazzar’s Feast.