Born: 5 May 1937, United Kingdom
Died: 3 July 2001
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
The following is republished with permission from Magnificent Women in Engineering and was written by Nina C. Baker.
Delia Derbyshire is best known for her work with the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop and creating the famous Dr Who theme music. Although not, strictly speaking an engineer, Delia spent most of her working life in a highly technical line of work, making innovative use of the emerging electronics of the period. Born into a working class family in Coventry, Delia was exceptionally bright, especially at maths, and won a scholarship to study maths at Girton College Cambridge – an outstanding achievement for a girl from such a humble background. She graduated with a degree in maths and music in 1959, having also had some courses in electronics. The commercial recording studios of the period refused her applications because she was a girl but in 1960, she joined the BBC as a trainee assistant studio manager and two years later had persuaded the BBC to send her to the Radiophonics Workshop, where she was immersed in the electronic equipment from which her musical talents coaxed the music for which she is famous. She worked on an enormous number of other compositions but the BBC in those days did not credit such work and it would be 50 years before an onscreen credit of her Dr Who music was permitted. She collaborated with Brian Hodgson and others in establishing freelance electronic studios but in 1975 left the field and composed little music in the rest of her life, as she moved between a variety of jobs. Sadly her life ended somewhat chaotically due to alcoholism but is widely remembered and was honoured with a posthumous honorary doctorate from Coventry University and also a blue plaque in the same town of her birth.
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
After earning a dual degree in mathematics and music, Delia Derbyshire was rejected by Decca Records, because the company did not employ women in their recording studios. Instead, she joined the BBC in 1960 and transferred to the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop in 1962, working there for more than 10 years. At the BBC, Derbyshire composed music for shows like Time on our Hands and The World about Us, but she’s best known for her arrangement of composer Ron Grainer’s 1963 theme music for Doctor Who. The process involved recording hundreds of sounds on analogue tape, adjusting the pitch of each one, then seamlessly splicing them together. BBC policy required members of the Workshop to remain anonymous, meaning that her role as a co-composer was not recognised until 2013—she received an on-screen credit on The Day of the Doctor, a special episode to commemorate the show’s 50th anniversary.