After he left Sadler's Wells, and being passed over as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, Davis was named chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, effective September 1967. At first, in the general view of the public, his tenure was overshadowed, at least during the Proms, by the memory of Sir Malcolm Sargent. Compared to the "suave father figure" image of Sargent to the promenaders, it took some time for the much younger Davis to be accepted. The BBC's official historian of the Proms later wrote, "Davis never really identified himself with the Proms in the way that Sargent had done. Davis was uncomfortable with the traditional hullabaloo of the Last Night of the Proms and attempted, unsuccessfully, to modernise it. The BBC's Controller of Music, William Glock, was a long-standing admirer of Davis, and encouraged him to put on adventurous programmes, with a new emphasis on modern music, both at the Proms and throughout the rest of the orchestra's annual schedule.