William Lambert Williamson (28 April 1907– 13 November 1975) was a British composer and conductor, best known for his scores for films, short documentaries and light music.[1]
He was born at 14 Lindum Road, Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, the son of a doctor.[2] Williamson studied engineering at Leeds University, where he was musical director of the revue Varsity Vanities in November 1931. He took his diploma in June 1932. He married Constance Haigh, a schoolteacher, in Huddersfield on 24 July 1933.[3] Before the war he was a pianist with the Jack Hylton band.[2]
Light music concert works, including the overtures Curtain Up and This is the Business, were recorded by Sidney Torch with the Queen's Hall Light Orchestra in the late 1940s.[5][6] In February 1951 Williamson composed Living Silence, a choral and speaking choir morality for Liverpool Cathedral, setting a text by Patric Dickinson and broadcast on the Third Programme.[7] Williamson regularly composed for BBC radio productions in the late 1940s and into the 1950s: his Rivers of the North of England, composed for the BBC Music Library in 1950, was used as the theme tune for Eric Simms' Countryside programme in 1952.[8][9] For the 'Mammoth Concert of Comic Music', held at the Royal Albert Hall on 17 July 1958 he contributed a Concertino for piano tuner and orchestra.[10]
Williamson, who first worked with Charlie Chaplin on the music for the film A Countess from Hong Kong in 1967, was the arranger of Chaplin's new score for the re-released edition of The Circus in 1969.[4] The score was restored for live orchestral screenings by Timothy Brock in 2003.[11]
He died in Buckinghamshire in November 1975, aged 68.[1]
