Scholarship to the Royal College of Music

Dyson entered the Royal College of Music on 7 May 1900 on an Open Foundation Scholarship to study organ with W. S. Hoyte and composition with Sir Charles Stanford. He was not quite seventeen years old. He was given a preliminary examination in Halifax on 31 January, and a final examination on 23 February. Organ was his first study and the subject for which the scholarship was awarded. Composition was his second study and was shared with lessons in analysis.

How he came to organise the audition from his remote northern outpost is not known. What is certain though is that his mother was the real mover and shaker of the family. She was the dominant partner, as we have seen, and if she decided that George was going to succeed in making the most of his obvious talents there was little that would stop her. In a small town where musicians of George's calibre of any age were few and far between the organist of the parish church would have been an obvious consultant. We have already surmised that he might have taught the boy the organ, and may well have tutored him in harmony and counterpoint for the Royal College of Organists diplomas. If this is the case, then it is also likely that he suggested the Royal College of Music as an ideal place for him to continue his studies, knowing the scholarships they offered.