Elizabeth Poston

Elizabeth Poston (24 October 1905 – 18 March 1987) was an English composer, pianist and writer. Poston was born in Highfield House in Pin Green, which is now the site of Hampson Park in Stevenage. In 1914, she moved with her mother, Clementine Poston, to nearby Rooks Nest House, where E. M. Forster had lived as a child. Poston and Forster subsequently became good friends. She studied at Queen Margaret's School, York, and with pianist Harold Samuel before attending the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, where she was encouraged by both Peter Warlock and Ralph Vaughan Williams. She won a prize from the RAM for her one movement Violin Sonata, which was subsequently broadcast by the BBC on 9 July 1928, with Antonio Brosa as soloist and Victor Hely-Hutchinson piano.When she graduated from the RAM in 1925, seven of her songs were published, and in 1928 she published five more. Poston went abroad between 1930 and 1939, where she studied architecture and collected folksongs. When she returned to England at the beginning of World War II she joined the BBC and became director of music in the European Service. During the war, Poston is said to have carried out secretive work as an agent; at the BBC she apparently used gramophone records to send coded messages to allies in Europe. She left the BBC briefly in 1945, but returned in 1947 to advise on the creation of the BBC Third Programme. Poston was the president of the Society of Women Musicians 1955–61.