Howard Ferguson (1908-1999) was a composer, musicologist and pianist. Further details of his life and work can be found in Grove Music Online.

Biographical details of Anne and Charles McBurney were provided by their son Gerard McBurney: Anne Frances Edmondstone Charles was born on 3 November 1918 in Camberley, Surrey. She served in the WAAF during the war, then in 1946 went to work for Rebecca West as what was then called her "secretary". In 1952, she met Charles Brian Montagu McBurney, an archaeologist at Cambridge. In 1953 she married him, moved to Cambridge, and had three children, including the composer and writer Gerard McBurney (b 1954). Charles McBurney was a Fellow of Corpus College, Cambridge (after an earlier association with King's) and one of his friends was the scientist Stuart Elliott, who was an amateur musician and a good friend of Howard Ferguson. Some time in the mid-1970s, Stuart was able to offer Ferguson a visiting fellowship at Corpus, to enable him to continue working on his Schubert edition. Ferguson, through Stuart, became close friends with the McBurneys and had many friends in common, including Toti and Dorothy de Navarro, and John McMullen, from York Minster. Ferguson took to Cambridge and moved there from London. After Charles McBurney's death in 1979, Howard and Anne stayed very close, living round the corner from one another and often having meals together, along with Kathleen Lee, the widow of the master of Corpus, Sir Frank Lee.