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
Roland Vaughan Williams to the Privy Council at the same time. In 1906 he was appointed chairman of the Royal Commission on the disestablishment of the Church in Wales; the success of the commission and the smooth implementation of its recommendations were largely attributable to him. In 1865 he married Laura Susannah, daughter of Edmund Lomax of Surrey; they had one son who survived to adulthood and two who did not. Vaughan Williams died at his home in Abinger, Surrey, at the age of 77. Roland Vaughan Williams Sir Roland Lomax Bowdler Vaughan Williams (31 December 1838 – 8 December 1916) was an