William Yeates Hurlstone was born in West Kensington on January 7th 1876. His musical talent was early manifested to sympathetic parents, and at eighteen William won a maintenance scholarship for three years to the Royal College of Music. His promise there was sufficient for it to be extended to four years. He studied piano with Algernon Ashton — himself one of the most shamefully ignored of English composers, with a long list of what, for me, are unqualified masterpieces to his credit — and composition with Stanford, who spoke of him as his best student.

Stanford’s other students at the time included John Ireland, Frank Bridge, Coleridge-Taylor and Thomas Dunhill, with all of whom, especially Coleridge-Taylor, Hurlstone was always on very friendly terms …