Percy M. Young

Young was born in Northwich, Cheshire. His father, twice mayor of Northwich, was a clerk at Brunner Mond Chemical works in Winsford; his mother, Annie née Marshall, was a nurse. Young was educated at the local Sir John Deane's Grammar School, from where he won a scholarship to Christ's Hospital,Horsham, where, taught by Robert Wilkinson, he became senior Music Grecian; and then, in 1930, he won an organ scholarship to Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he read English (studying under Tom Henn), History and Music (studying music history under Edward Dent and organ under Cyril Rootham). Staying a fourth year in Cambridge, taking up the Stuart of Rannoch Scholarship, he was awarded the William Barclay Squire Prize for music paleography. Then from 1934 to 1937 he was Director of Music at Stranmillis Teacher Training College in Belfast, during which years he earned a Mus.D. at Trinity College, Dublin. From 1937 to 1944 Young was Musical Adviser to Stoke-on-Trent Local Education Authority. After that, Young became Director of Music at Wolverhampton College of Technology, a position he would occupy from 1944 to 1966, after which he became an independent scholar, prolific author, music-arranger / -editor and enthusiastic lecturer, broadcaster, adjudicator and examiner. In 1985 he was made a D.Mus., h.c., by The University of Birmingham; and in 1998 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge.

Young published more than 50 books. Among those are biographies of musicians George Frideric Handel (1947), Sir Edward Elgar (1955), Ralph Vaughan Williams (1953), Robert Schumann (1957), Zoltán Kodály (1964), Sir Arthur Sullivan (1971), Sir George Grove (1980), and Alice, Lady, Elgar(1978). Also, for younger readers, he wrote a series on composers including Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Benjamin Britten.

From fragments left by the composer Young reconstructed and published a suite from The Spanish Lady, the unfinished opera by Elgar. A chapter of his book Elgar, O. M. includes letters and a synopsis of the play, with the characters and musical sketches described.

His own compositions include: "Virgin's Slumber Song" (1932), From a Child's Garden (Robert Louis Stevenson; 1941), Passacaglia for violin and piano (1931), Fugal Concerto in G minor for 2 pianos and strings (1951), Elegy for String Orchestra (1960) and Festival Te Deum (1961). There are also many unpublished pieces for brass ensemble. Piano duo Keith Swallow and John Wilson have recorded his Five Folk Song Duets (1938).

Young was also an avid football fan and historian, writing histories of several league clubs, including Wolverhampton Wanderers, Manchester United, Bolton Wanderers, Football on Merseyside, Football in Sheffield, plus a history of the game itself (A History of British Football). Young was also briefly a Labour councillor in Wolverhampton, gaining the Wednesfield Heath ward from the Conservatives in a bye-election. In the 1970s he was Chairman of The Council for Community Relations in Wolverhampton.

After the death of his first wife, Netta, Young married Renée Morris in 1969, who survives him, along with three sons and a daughter of his first marriage.

Young's archive is held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.