Book: The Village Brass Band

The Village Brass Band is the latest book on the history of East Anglian bands from the historian David Cawdell. It includes chapters on the history of banding, dating band uniforms, bandstands and contests, then covers over twenty detailed histories of Suffolk bands with snippets and photographs of twenty others.  He has found over 70 villages that used to have bands but, sadly, as yet has not been able to glean enough information to warrant a page or picture.

It is available in some specialist local bookshops and from the author himself, who is well known in the region for his talks on the history of brass bands.

The 76 page book is priced £8.50 with £1.50 postage from

David Cawdell, 23 Low Street, Hoxne, Eye, Suffolk IP21 5AR

Book: The Musical Salvationist

Just published by Boydell Press:

The Musical Salvationist: The World of Richard Slater (1854-1939), ‘Father of Salvation Army Music’, by Gordon Cox.

The Musical Salvationist frames the musical history of the Salvation Army through the life story of Richard Slater, popularly known as the ‘Father of Salvation Army Music’.
This book focuses upon the significant contribution of the Salvation Army to British musical life from the late Victorian era until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

Richard Slater [1854-1939] worked in the Army’s Musical Department from 1883 until his retirement in 1913. His detailed hand-written diaries reveal new information about his background before he became a Salvationist at the age of 28. He then worked as the principal Salvationist composer, arranger and musical editor of the period and had contact with William Booth, the Army’s Founder, who rejoiced in ‘robbing the devil of his choice tunes’; George Bernard Shaw who wrote a penetrating critique of a band festival in 1905; and Eric Ball who was to become one of the Army’s finest composers.

See this link for futher details from the publisher.

http://www.boydellandbrewer.com/store/viewitem.asp?idproduct=13850

Family bands

The Shepard Family Band was one of a number of similar “family” bands that gave concerts and performances in the USA in the late 1800s. The Shepards were based in Massachusetts and were active in the late 1880s and 1890s. Although the various family bands had different line-ups and instrumentation, they were quite popular as entertainment troupes, possibly singing and dancing in addition to their, often, multi-instrumental abilities.

Little is known about them other than that gleaned from the various promotional postcards or cabinet cards that they produced. These mainly show the family holding brass instruments, but they also performed as string, banjo and vocal ensembles, and may also have performed various sketches.

The family consisted of: Mr. J. M. Shepard – First Violin, Bb Bass Horn & Basso Soloist. Mrs. J.M. Shepard – Second Bb Cornet, Organist & Soprano. Miss Kittie Shepard – Cornet Soloist, Leader of Brass Band, Banjo Artist and Ballad Songstress. Miss Laura Shepard, Bb Tenor Horn, Baritone Soloist, Solo Violinist, Banjo and Character Sketch Artist. Miss Lessie Shepard – Eb Alto Horn, Second Violin, Irish & Dutch Specialty Artist. Miss Georgie Shepard – Little Bass Drummer, Bb Tenor Horn. And Master Burtin Shepard – Violin and Triangle, Vocal Artist and Bass Drum.

Family bands were not uncommon around the late 1800s and early 1900s, and those in the USA are known largely through their promotional cards. They existed in other countries also, but photographs and other information about them is more sparse.

Pictures of the bands below, and other unknown family bands, can be found in the IBEW Vintage Brass Band Pictures pages.

• Biehl Family Orchestra, Iowa
• Botteron Family Band, Chamberlain, Indiana. The musicians were 11 of the 16 children of Frederick Louis Botteron and Mary Jane Stone, aged from 9 to 26 years old in 1895. Some of the older brothers had been in the Chamberlain Cornet Band. When it disbanded they bought the instruments and uniforms and taught their siblings to play.
• Bramusa Family Band, UK
• Browns Family Orchestra, Wilmington, Delaware
• Denman Family Band, Wyandotte. In the 1880s, this featured their five children: Charles, Belle, William, Bertha and John. Charles grew up to become an accomplished cornetist and the leader of the Belleville Citizens Band.
• Forbes Family Band
• Frank Family Band, Hornellsville
• Hawthorne Family Band, Portland, Indiana, 1889
• Hewitt Family Band
• Jacobs Family Band, Illinois
• Lawrence Family Band, Massachusetts
• Markee Family Band, Quincy, Illinois. Active there in 1899. Moved to Chillicothe, Missouri in 1907
• McGiben Family Band
• Noss Family Band, New Brighton, Pennsylvania. Also known as the “Noss Jollities of Musical Comedy”. They were a family of eight including the parents, the children being Flora, Ferdinand, Charlotte, Frank, May, Bertha, Helen, and Lottie. Their first professional local performance was in Homewood, where a circus man from Maine saw them in action one day and offered to manage them on a 16-week tour of Maine. Their career took off from then. When the parents dropped out of the act, Ferd, Flora, Lottie, Frank and Mary billed themselves as “The Five Musical Nosses” and made for New York. There they became a vaudeville success. They retired in 1925 with the coming of the “talkies”. They toured the entire United States, Canada, Cuba, and Mexico many times over. See also http://www.bchistory.org/beavercounty/BeaverCountyTopical/arts,crafts,culture/NossFamilyBand/Nossindex/NossIndex.html
• Silver Family Concert Band, Michigan.  Bert Silver was born into a show business family. In 1904 he started tent shows and had the first motorized circus in the United States, with four touring cars, four trucks and an advance car. Bert and his entire family played in the Silver Family Concert Band as part of the circus and also in concerts. In 1916 the circus had to be disbanded because the tents and trucks were confiscated by the U.S. Government for use in World War I. When the circus disbanded the family settled in Greenville.
• Strohl Family Band, 1870
• Swanson Family Band
• Wagner Family Band, Texas. Led by Joseph George Wagner
• Woodward Davis Family Band, Mineral Wells, Texas, 1917. Led by W.W. Woodward and his sister, Mrs E.L. Davies, with their children, aged from 5 to 16 years.

Stamford Brook Silver Band

The Stamford Brook Silver Band was active in the 1930s, based at St Mary’s Church, Hammersmith. This photograph was taken at a concert for the Holy Trinity Church Music Festival on Saturday 4th June (probably 1932), at the Crabb Memorial Hall.  This hall may have been in London, but the only reference found so far is to one in Tunbridge Wells.
The interesting fact about this photo, other than its evidence of the band’s existence, is the obvious later addition of the “scoutmaster” on the far right.  Who was he? Why was he added later? Why is he in army or scouting uniform?

I suspect we will never know, but this picture has parallels with that of the Bolton Borough Prize Band (below), which also had a person added to the photo.

Chorlton cum Hardy Band

Andrew Simpson has been researching the history of Chorlton cum Hardy, near Manchester, and uncovered some great detail about the brass band that existed in the village. There had been a brass band of sorts in Chorlton since 1820, the last one only ceasing to exist at the end of the last war.

Chorlton cum Hardy was a small rural community just 4½ miles south of Manchester. In 1851 there were just 761 people many working on the land. It was a place of farms and market gardens, providing food for the growing city.

The first band was formed in the 1820s by a young group of farmers and agricultural labourers many of whom were Methodists. It consisted of “brass instruments, clarinets, and piccolos and it was made up of about 24 members, including William Chessyhre, William Moores, William Gresty, and George Lunt with John Axon as drummer.” ¹ All five men also played in the Methodist choir and it is possible that other choir members also played in the band. These included James Brundrett who played the flute, Thomas Williamson and Thomas Taylor who played clarinet. William Gresty and George Lunt played bassoon.

There is a delightful story that the drum was made by James Axon the brother of the drummer but was found to be too large to get out of the cottage. Little more is known of the band and it survived for only a few years.

A second band was formed in 1850 as a drum and fife band and this in various forms survived into the middle of the twentieth century.

It was a subscription band and in 1851 three of its leading members raised £28 towards purchasing instruments. Like the earlier band its members were engaged in agriculture. Sadly only three of the founding band members are known. These were Daniel Thomas, Thomas Chesshyre and Thomas Hill, of these Daniel Thomas was a gardener and Thomas Chessyre a market gardener, who had been a Methodist but went on to be the respected Parish Clerk.

During its first year the band relied on a pensioner for instruction but in 1851 it turned to a Mr Kellsall who was the band master of the Stretford band who remained their instructor until a local policeman took over.

Over the years the band survived, finally reaching an end around 1945.  For more details of the band (at least as far as is known at present) see www.ibew.co.uk/misc85.htm.

Tuba players and children

How many children have had their lives blighted by their fathers stuffing them into a tuba? As a tuba player myself I did not try to put either of my daughters into my instrument (albeit when they were much smaller) but it would have made a great family photo!

Grundisburgh Brass Band

The earliest known press report is the Suffolk Standard of August 1892, when the band played at a local show. In June 1893 they played at an open-air concert in the grounds of Grundisburgh Hall, and it was reported that “The programme was interspersed with items by the Grundisburgh Brass band, which shows considerable improvement since last year“  Evidently the reporter wasn’t a fan!

Later that year, at a formal sit-down tea, it was reported that the band had 23 members, and the conductor, G. Walter Blackmore, ( the village schoolmaster), and the bandmaster, Richard H Gladwell, were both presented with inscribed marble clocks, so the band must have been going longer than so far confirmed.

In September 1892 it played at a Sale of Work at Grundisburgh House, in July 1894 and also in 1896 is entertained visitors to the Wherstead and Belstead Cottagers’ Show. July 1898 saw the band in action at the Clopton Flower Show and also the Witnesham Cottagers’ Show. In February 1900 is gave a concert for the “Absent-minded Beggar Fund“, raising £6 – this fund had been set up by the Daily Mail, using the popular poem by Rudyard Kipling as a focus for charitable fundraising during the Boer War. The band was still active after WW1.