Regarding the nation anthem or The Sanrasoen Phra Barami. It was stated that His Majesty King Chulalongkorn, on his first royal visit to India in the year 2414 (A.D. 1871) when arriving at Singapore, came to know that all nations had possessed an appropriate national hymn of their own, but our nation was yet without one, so he wished that our nation should also possess one. This royal wish was made known to a European bandmaster in Singapore, who then made several compositions in the European style with European wordings and offered them to His Majesty. It is not known whether this bandmaster composed the music himself or obtained the music from some other sources and his name is also unknown. His Majesty the King then made a choice of the different compositions offered him and bought one, which he then commanded to apply Siamese wordings to the melody; these wordings have later been corrected and altered several times until the sixth reign when His Majesty King Vajiravudh made the last alteration which remained in use up to now.
During a conference of the committees of Siamese musical experts in charge of taking musical notations of Siamese national music in the palace of H.R.H. Prince Damrong about 35 years ago, the writer who was present, then acting as President of the committee, remembered that H.R.H. Prince Damrong mentioned the name of this composer as Hoodson or Hudson.
