Ralph Vaughan Williams after Boult, Sargent and Barbirolli are Vernon Handley, Richard Hickox, Sir Mark Elder and Sir Andrew Davis. Record companies with extensive lists of Vaughan Williams recordings include EMI, Decca, Chandos, Hyperion and Naxos. Vaughan Williams refused a knighthood at least once, and declined the post of Master of the King's Music after Elgar's death. The one state honour he accepted was the Order of Merit in 1935, which confers no prenominal title: he preferred to remain "Dr Vaughan Williams". His academic and musical honours included an honorary doctorate of music from the University of Oxford (1919); the Cobbett medal for
Edward Vaughan Williams His fifth son, Roland Vaughan Williams, became lord justice of appeal in 1897. His grandson was the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Edward Vaughan Williams Sir Edward Vaughan Williams (1797–1875) was an English judge. Born in Queen's Square, Bayswater, he was the eldest surviving son of the barrister John Williams. He was educated first at Winchester College from 1808, but moved to Westminster School in 1811. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a scholar in 1816, and graduated B.A. 1820 and M.A. 1824. On leaving Cambridge Williams entered Lincoln's Inn as a student, and, after reading in the chambers of John