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
Ralph Vaughan Williams Dorking, and a bust in Chelsea Embankment Gardens, near his old house in Cheyne Walk. In 1994 a group of enthusiasts founded the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, with the composer's widow as its president and Roy Douglas and Michael Kennedy as vice presidents. The society, a registered charity, has sponsored and encouraged performances of the composer's works including complete symphony cycles and a Vaughan Williams opera festival. The society has promoted premieres of neglected works, and has its own record label, Albion Records. Composers of the generation after Vaughan Williams reacted against his style, which became unfashionable in influential musical