Ralph Vaughan Williams, OM (1872–1958) was an influential English composer. Vaughan Williams was born on 12th October 1872 in Down Ampney, a village in the Cotswolds. After attending Charterhouse School and Trinity College, Cambridge, he became a student at the Royal College of Music; he later studied with Max Bruch in Berlin and Maurice Ravel in Paris. He served as a lieutenant in World War I, having volunteered for the Field Ambulance Service; the appalling carnage affected him deeply, as did the deaths of close friends such as George Butterworth.

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