Origins & Early Life

Delia Ann Derbyshire (5 May 1937 – 3 July 2001) was an English musician and composer of electronic music. She worked with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop during the 1960s, including an electronic arrangement of the theme music to the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who. She has been referred to as "the unsung heroine of British electronic music", having influenced musicians including Aphex Twin, the Chemical Brothers and Paul Hartnoll of Orbital. Derbyshire was born in Coventry, daughter of Emma (née Dawson) and Edward Derbyshire.

Pivotal Works & Achievements

of Cedars Avenue, Coundon, Coventry. Her father was a sheet-metal worker. She had one sibling, a sister, who died young. Her father died in 1965 and her mother in 1994. During the Second World War, immediately after the Coventry Blitz in 1940, she was moved to Preston, Lancashire for safety.

Enduring Legacy & Impact

Her parents were from the town and most of her surviving relatives still live in the area. She was very bright and, by the age of four, was teaching others in her class to read and write in primary school, but said "The radio was my education". Her parents bought her a piano when she was eight years old. Educated at Barr's...

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