Here is the information that Phillip Sear put in the notes that accompany this video (copied here so that it might be found by other Fox hunters):
Phillip Sear plays a piece from around 1925 by the short-lived English composer K. Dorothy Fox (1894-1934).
There seems to be very little information available on K(alitha) Dorothy Fox. As you can see from her brief Wikipedia page she wrote a few pieces of piano and chamber music in her short life. She was born in Kensington, London, and must have been a prodigy, as her first piece was published at the age of just 12. She took her unusual first name from her mother, born Kaletha Marianne Childs. Some of her scores were published in Paris, and she was certainly living there around 1927 (her family seem to have moved overseas in the early 1900s), and she spent her last years living with a friend in Amersham, Bucks.
She died in a hotel in Windsor, Berkshire (she sadly hung herself with a silk scarf), having gone there to escape the noise from pneumatic drills at her home, and had some incomplete manuscripts with her at the time. The beneficiary of her will (and dedicatee of her viola sonata - see here for some programme notes from a 2017 performance (Ooh! that's a link to this blog!) was her brother Gerald Hugh Borlase Fox (1900-95). I put these details here in the hope that people with more information on her might find this description and be able to add to what is known of her life.
The '5 Pieces' were dedicated to another little-known British woman composer, and fellow member of the Society of Women Composers, the harpsichordist Dorothy Erhart (1894-1971).
My thumbnail shows a colourized detail from a photo in Amersham Museum of the 1934 Boxing Day hunt in the Broadway, an event Dorothy might well have witnessed as she was living in Amersham at the time.
And then there's this obituary from the Times that Mr. Sear sent:
INQUEST ON WOMAN COMPOSER
THE CORONER'S COMMENTS ON NOISE
The inquest was held at Windsor yesterday on the body of Miss K. Dorothy Fox, of Hyde Park Square, London, W., who was found hanging by a silk scarf at an hotel at Windsor on Saturday. She had been at the hotel about a fortnight, coming, is is stated, from a country town. Miss Fox was a talented composer, and a number of half-finished manuscripts were found in here luggage.
Dr. Edward Arthur Gibson, of Cleveland Square, London, said Miss Fox was 40 years old, and of independent means. Her father was abroad. She was highly strung, temperamental, and artistic.
The DEPUTY CORONER, Mr. J..A. Leonard, said that a quantity of drugs had been found in Miss Fox's room, and asked Dr. Gibson to say what they were.
Dr. Gibson examined several bottles and boxes and said they appeared to be harmless.
Miss Christabel Lowndes Yates, of Windsor House, Amersham, a novelist, said in evidence that Miss Fox had been living with her for about seven years. They met in France, where it was considered Miss Fox had only three months to live unless she could be looked after better. Miss Fox got better, but suffered from nerves. She had taken a medicinal on a doctor's prescription, but she had never threatened to take her life. She had, in fact, gone to the doctor's when she saw this drug on a list of dangerous drugs, and asked him if it would give her an urge in the direction of suicide. Thee witness did not know what the reply was, but the drug was not withdrawn.
Continuing, the witness said that Miss Fox was very small, and at one period only weighed 5st. 6oz. or 7oz. She was a very fine musician. Her work had been broadcast in several countries, and a concert of her work was given in London about a month ago, and another work was to be published in this country, France, and Germany. She was considered to be an extraordinarily promising composer. She had no love affairs so far as the witness knew, and no financial trouble.
"INCREDIBLE NOISE"
Miss Fox had left her house a fortnight before because oof the unbearable noise from the road repairs, the witness went on. There were about eight pneumatic drills, two engines, and other noisy things, and the vibration was so bad that they had to open the windows for fear they would be broken, dismantle the wireless, and pack up the piano and the china. They could not speak on the telephone. The noise was incredible. The witness received a letter from Miss Fox posted the night before her death, and it was perfectly cheerful and normal.
The CORONER--Do you think this pneumatic drill got on her nerves?
Miss Yates--While she was there, but I don't think so after she had gone
The CORONER said that a good deal of prominence had been given to Miss Fox's death, possibly from a feeling of indignation against "these nerve-shattering machines," which were one of the many tribulations of this age of noise. But he thought in this case the noise of the pneumatic drill was a very small link in the chain of events leading to Miss Fox's unhappy ending. It was evident that Miss Fox was of an artistic and perhaps somewhat neurotic temperament. He recorded a verdict of "Suicide while of unsound mind."
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