Sir Arthur Somervell was an English composer and educationalist. After Hubert Parry, he was one of the most successful and influential writers of art song in the English music renaissance of the 1890s–1900s. According to Michael Hurd, his most important work is found in the five song cycles, particularly his settings of Tennyson in Maud (1898) and Housman in A Shropshire Lad (1904).
Titlepage of Somervell's 'Maud' cycle, Boosey & Co. 1898
Alfred Edward Housman was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by publishing as a private scholar at first. Later Housman was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London and then at the University of Cambridge. He is now acknowledged as one of the foremost classicists of his age and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars of any time. His editions of Juvenal, Manilius, and Lucan are still considered authoritative.
A. E. Housman
Valley House, Housman's birthplace
The site of the 17th-century Fockbury House (later known as The Clock House). Home of Housman from 1873 to 1878
Home of Housman from 1860 to 1873 and again from 1878 to 1882. His younger brother Laurence was born here in 1865.