When Ruth Gipps died in 1999, her legacy was as one of Britain¿s most prolific female composers. Gipps¿s talents were acknowledged but not always respected and she was a figure often dogged by controversy. In the first major review of her life and work the importance of Ruth Gipps is established in two ways: first, as a pioneering woman composer and conductor whose work challenged prevailing attitudes in the era directly after the war and second, as a composer whose musical philosophy was often at odds with mainstream thinking. Although she was branded a reactionary, her position reveals a number of important counter currents in English musical life in the twentieth century.