Today "Willie" Reed is better known as having been the leader of the influential London Symphony Orchestra and for his association with Edward Elgar than for anything else, but in his day he was an accomplished musician, composer, and conductor who attracted much admiration from his contemporaries. His two books ( Elgar as I Knew him in 1936 and a 1939 volume in Dent's Master Musicians series) are still among the standard references on the great English composer. His own compositional output contains no works of outstanding importance, but many pieces of a pleasant English pastoral character. Reed's musical education was at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied violin and composition with Emile Sauret and Frederick Corder, among others. While still at the Academy, he became an accomplished chamber musician, an influence that would remain with him throughout his life. In 1904 he became a founding member of the London Symphony Orchestra, a body which would become extremely important in British music circles over the next 40 years. He quickly rose to become leader of the orchestra (a position the importance of which in modern orchestras he did much to establish) and remained at the helm till 1935, when he became the orchestra's Chairman. The annual Three Choirs Festival in England's West Country became an important aspect of Reed's life and it was while playing here with the LSO for a number of years that he first befriended Elgar. The relationship quickly blossomed and he was a player in premieres of the latter's Violin Sonata, String Quartet, and Piano Quintet. He also gave the composer technical advice in aspects of his Violin Concerto and was instrumental in helping to commission the Third Symphony in 1933 for a special series of concerts to celebrate British music the following year. It was the drafts of this unfinished symphony in his 1936 book, together with details of Elgar's discussions with him on the subject, which gave Anthony Payne much of the material he needed to reconstruct the symphony in a performing edition in 1994. Reed's composing career spans much of his life, from an early Valse Brillante in 1898 to the overture Merry Andrew in 1940 and beyond. Some of this music, especially the more "English" works, enjoyed popular support at the time but have since languished in neglect, despite several of them being played at Henry Wood Promenade Concerts. Some of the tone poems were played at the Three Choirs Festival and these plus several of the major works, including the 1918 Violin Concerto and the 1939 choral piece Earl Haldan's Daughter, are worthy of resurrection today. Bournemouth was also an important concert venue for Reed, as it was for many British composers of the day, and the Viola Concerto, the Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra, and Aesop's Fables all received performances there. His commitment to music ran deep and his career as a conductor deserves future examination. In 1933 he was appointed conductor of the Strolling Players and spent much time in his life conducting amateur orchestras and ensembles. He was especially interested in supporting musical education and his orchestral compositions include a number specifically written for school orchestras, including the appropriately named March of the Prefects! He taught violin at the Royal College in London (a competitor to his own alma mater!) and was an examiner and adjudicator for the Associated Board until -- quite literally -- his dying day.