On today’s date in 1958, just nine days after his death, a funeral service was held for the great 20th century British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams at Westminster Abbey in London, where his ashes were laid to rest. Now, thousands of famous people are buried at Westminster Abbey, but an actual funeral service there, especially for someone not of the royal family, is pretty rare. In fact, Vaughan Williams was the first commoner to be buried there for almost 300 years.

The previous funeral for a commoner had been for the great 17th English composer and sometime organist of the Abbey, Henry Purcell, whose grave, like Vaughan Williams, is in the Abbey’s north choir aisle, should you wish to pay your respects.

Vaughan Williams had left instructions for the music to be played, which included his anthem “O taste and see,” sung while his ashes were interred, and also his setting of the hymn, “All people that on earth do dwell,” written for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, which had taken place at Westminster Abbey just five years earlier, in 1953.

The service was broadcast live by the BBC, and the announcer noted that if all the submitted requests to attend had have been honored, the Abbey would have been filled twice over.