Roy Williamson
Scottish musician (1936–1990)
Roy Murdoch Buchanan Williamson (25 June 1936 – 12 August 1990) was a Scottish songwriter and folk musician, most notably with The Corries. Williamson is best known for writing "Flower of Scotland", which has become the de facto national anthem of Scotland used at international sporting events.
Early life
Roy Williamson's father, Archibald Moir Macrae Williamson, was an advocate (a barrister); his mother, Agnes Ethel Cumming Buchanan Williamson, was a talented pianist who frequently took her two sons, Robert and Roy, to musical events. As a schoolboy, Williamson learned to play the recorder by ear, pretending to read music. A teacher found out and banned him from music lessons. He went to Wester Elchies School, then Aberlour House and Gordonstoun in Moray. He taught seamanship and navigation at Burghead before going to Edinburgh College of Art. It was there in 1955 that he met Ronnie Browne, with whom he would team up in The Corries. The partnership lasted almost thirty years. Williamson and Browne also shared a passion for rugby, having played wing against each other for Edinburgh Wanderers and Boroughmuir, respectively.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Roy Williamson” is scottish musician (1936–1990). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Williamson, Scottish and musician, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “scottish musician (1936–1990)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q638583. VIAF identifies the subject as 38600752. The Library of Congress control number is n94027462. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 1990 and 1955.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Roy Williamson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.