Shaw (Harold) Watkins
Shaw (Harold) Watkins
Shaw, (Harold) Watkins , English musicologist and teacher; b. Bradford, April 3, 1911. He studied history at Wadham Coll., Oxford (B.A., 1932), then took courses in musicology with Colles and R.O. Morris at the Royal Coll. of Music in London (1932–33); received the D.Litt in the faculty of music from the Univ. of Oxford (1967). In 1949 he was appointed lecturer at the Worcester Coll. of Education; from 1971 until his retirement in 1980, he served as keeper of the Parry Room Library at the Royal Coll. of Music. In 1985 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Among his publs. are The Three Choirs Festival, c. 1713–1953 (1954), The Story of Handel’s “Messiah,” 1741–1784 (London, 1963), A Textual and Historical Companion to Handel’s “Messiah” (London, 1965), The Organists and Organs of Hereford Cathedral (Hereford, 1976), and The Succession of Organists of the Chapel Royal and the Cathedrals of England and Wales from c. 1538: Also of the Organists of the Collegiate Churches of Westminster and Windsor, Certain Academic Choral Foundations, and the Cathedrals of Armagh and Dublin (Oxford, 1991). He also ed. Sir Frederick Ouseley and St Michael’s, Tenbury (Birmingham, 1988).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire