UBIQUITOUS AMBASSADORS
KNOTTINGLEY SILVER BAND
by TERRY SPENCER B.A. (Hons), Ph D.
CHAPTER ONE
CONTENTS | PAGE ONE |
PAGE TWO
ORIGINS & EARLY HISTORY: CIRCA 1860 - 1900
“They say that Macnamara’s
Was the finest in the land
But we know a damn sight better,
It was Sammy Marshall’s band…..
…They played everywhere at Christmas
- as traditional as mince pies,
And they must have been quite special
To earn the logo ‘Silver Prize’.”
Frank Webster Chambers
‘A Memory Jog: Further Memories of Old Knottingley
Carey J. Chambers (ed), (1995)
The origin of Knottingley Band is obscure. In 1980 the Band celebrated its
conjectured centenary year, the date being taken from an old letterhead of
1880. (1) However, a subsequent documentary source has been located which
indicates that the genesis of the Band may lie much further in the past.
The records of the long defunct Knottingley Brewery Co. reveal that in
April 1861 the proprietor, John Carter, made a donation to Knottingley Town
Band. (2) There is clear evidence therefore that a band was in existence
early in the second half of the nineteenth century and as the name
‘Knottingley Town’ or ‘Knottingley Brass Band’ was commonly used prior to
the adoption of the title ‘Knottingley Silver Prize Band’ early the
following century, it would suggest that the year 1880 merely marked the
reorganisation of the Band which was already well established by that date.
The roots of brass band history are lost in time but immediate influences
date from the late eighteenth century when the growing popularity of fairs
and markets increasingly became the haunts of musicians. A simultaneous
development was the growth of church bands as small groups of parishioners
banded together to provide musical accompaniments for divine worship. The
musical nucleus was forged into a cohesive whole by the advent of the
Industrial Revolution which by the early nineteenth century as an antidote
to the harsh drabness of working class life, engendered the genesis of small
bands which were to develop as an important element of popular working class
culture in many small towns and villages. Numerous brass and reed bands were
formed at that period, with many having but a short existence. Others,
however, such as Kippax village band, established in 1814, proved more
durable and thrived in the burgeoning atmosphere of national security and
patriotic pride which characterised the Victorian era.
Nominally subscription bands were primarily of working class membership
and dependant upon the financial support of working class communities. Such
bands were also of economic necessity, open to the patronage of the local
gentry. Thus, the involvement and by extension, influence of the middle
classes was a clearly discernible element in the development of local
ensembles.
The middle class squire-archy and aspirant capitalist manufacturers,
mindful of the excesses and social consequences of the French Revolution of
1789 and fearful of the latent power of the growing industrial proletariat
in England, regarded music as a force of good; a device by which the masses
might be gentled and pacified. To this purpose they actively supported the
formation of community bands and in so doing became the arbiters of musical
taste subliminally defining a basic repertoire of selections from operas,
marches, waltzes and polkas.
Simultaneous technical and commercial revolutions accompanied and
influenced developing social trends. From the mid nineteenth century the
process of mass production assisted the manufacture of cheaper instruments
while the invention of the piston valve and its application to musical
instruments made such instruments relatively easier to play and was
therefore fundamental to the increase in the number of bands formed as the
century progressed. (3)
Such bands were frequently associated with local inns which in addition to
affording the facility for practice in convivial surroundings also provided
adequate space for the storage of instruments. The bands were supported and
encouraged by brewers and publicans keen to promote entertainment and
stimulate the sale of ale. Money for the purchase of instruments and music
stands was commonly raised by public subscription and by loans from wealthy
patrons who also often owned the premises which served as a bandroom. (4)
Thus, there is a distinct possibility that the beginnings of Knottingley
Town Band were subject to such an arrangement and this is further reinforced
by the known link with the Carter family and with St. Botolph’s Church with
which that family were so prominently associated throughout the nineteenth
century.
Of the formative years of the Band there is little specific evidence and
it is only following the establishment of the Pontefract Advertiser late in
1863 that snippets of news began to appear concerning the activities of the
Band. A newspaper report of November 1874, for instance, states that
Knottingley Brass Band played for dancing in Knottingley Town Hall until
11.00pm. (5) More seditiously, perhaps, is a report the year following that
the Band led George Knapton and his supporters from Knottingley railway
station to the Town Hall following Knapton’s release from prison where he
had spent a month in detention for illegally voting in an election for the
town guardians. Knapton was met at the station by an open conveyance and was
triumphantly led through the streets by the Band. At the Town Hall, Knapton
was presented with a purse containing £20 by Sidney Woolf Esq., earthenware
manufacturer of Ferrybridge Pottery, one of the successful electoral
candidates in whose interest Knapton had broken the law. (6)
The month before, the Band had played at the opening match of Knottingley
Town Cricket Club following its relocation to Banks Garth, the occasion
being marked by a match between the married and single men of the town. (7)
The event was but the first in which the Band appeared at the Banks Garth
cricket field and marked the beginning of a mutually supportive bond between
the Band and the Club throughout subsequent decades.
As early as the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Band was
already engaged on a well established routine, elements of which are still
discernible today. For example, in 1875 the Band paraded the streets of
Knottingley on Christmas morning, playing carols, and annual event designed
to provide festive cheer and simultaneously take advantage of the season of
goodwill to replenish the coffers of the Band. (8)
A further annual engagement was the ‘send off’ provided by the Band on the
occasion of the annual Sunday School trip for the teachers and pupils of St.
Botolph’s Church. On occasion, the Band actually accompanied the trippers on
their out of town excursions, as in August 1885 when a convoy of eight
wagonettes travelled to Womersley park headed by the Band which played as
they left Knottingley and as they entered Womersley, and then repeated the
performance on the return journey. (9)
In the winter of 1885-86 the Band appeared in a series of entertainments
given in the National Schoolroom, promoted by the Vicar of St. Botolph’s,
Rev. F.E. Egerton. (10) Again, in 1885, the Band made what was described as,
“their annual church parade” on Whit Sunday morning and shortly after noon
the following day accompanied the Sunday School pupils under the direction
of Mr. Starr, walking in procession through the town and singing hymns at
the residences of principal members of the St. Botolph’s congregation. By
4.00pm, the rounds being completed, both Band and scholars sat down to “a
well provided tea” in the schoolroom. The procession then reformed and
marched to Grange Field, the Hill Top residence of Mrs Hannah Martha Carter,
widow of the erstwhile brewery owner, where games took place as the Ban
played selections of music to “the great delight of all present.”
Finally, after the singing of a favourite hymn and a round of cheers by
the pupils for Mrs Carter, the Vicar, the Sunday School teachers (plus one
for themselves), the Band struck up with the National Anthem to mark the end
of a very busy day. (11) Undaunted, the following year the Band again
accompanied the St. Botolph’s Sunday School trip, this time on a visit to
Nostell Priory. (12)
Regardless of any patronage which may have been bestowed by the Carter
family or other benefactors, the Band has, from its earliest days down to
the present time, been largely self-supporting, relying upon the skill and
enthusiasm of its members to elicit the patronage of the local population.
That support from this source has generally been forthcoming is largely due
to the esteem in which the Band has been held by the public because of its
readiness to support any occasion, civic or social within the town and
district, particularly events held for charitable purposes. Nowhere is this
more clearly evident than in the case of fundraising for the district
medical charities which served the local population.
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century the custom had developed
of holding an annual parade with the Town Band leading representatives of
the various friendly societies through the main thoroughfares of the town as
collectors sought random contributions from bystanders in support of
organisations such as Pontefract Dispensary, Leeds Infirmary and Askern Spa
Medicinal Baths. Thus, in 1881, the Town Band led members of twenty lodges
of the Oddfellows Friendly Society in a march round the town as a
preliminary to a service held in the Ropewalk Wesleyan Chapel. Frequent
heavy showers resulted in the temporary abandonment of the parade but
following the service, the group reformed and visited the areas unattended
earlier that day. (13)
A variation of the fund raising activity of the Band is also evident from
an earlier engagement at which, on Monday and Tuesday, 23-24 August 1880,
the Knottingley Town Band played for dancing at Ferrybridge feast and gala
which was held in support of the medical establishments. (14)
The Oddfellows, Buffalos and kindred organisations within the town formed
the Knottingley Charitable Institutions Committee which by 1884 had extended
the number of charitable events held within the town throughout the year
including a gala event to coincide with Feast Week activities on and around
August Bank Holiday each year. The earliest recorded gala concert was held
at Grange Field, adjacent to the residence of Mrs Hannah Martha Carter, in
1884. Within a few years the event had been transformed, becoming an annual
Hospital Sunday parade and demonstration with which the Town Band was to be
associated for over half a century. (15) However, throughout the decade of
the 1880s there appears to have been a hiatus concerning the Town Band’s
involvement with the annual parade and demonstration, the rival Bagley’s
Glassworks Band being regular participants in the event. (16)
The ‘Glasshouse’ band was formed by the employees of Messrs Bagley Wild &
Co., whose glass bottle factory had introduced the industry to Knottingley
in May 1871. (17) The precise date of the establishment of the Glassworks
Band is not known but the indications are that it was formed in the early
1880s for a report in the Pontefract & Castleford Express, dated August
1883, states that: -
“The Brass Band of Bagley, Wild & Co., under conductor, Mr. John Shaw,
paraded the town on Saturday and Monday and played well indeed considering
the short time Mr. Jerry Johnson of Castleford, the teacher, has had them
under his tuition.” (18)
Although entitled a ‘brass band’ reference to it as a ‘Brass and reed
band’ is found in a report of a concert performance which took place on
Knottingley Flatts in June 1884, under “their able bandmaster, Mr John
Shaw”, when the efforts of the band were stated to be “highly appreciated”,
(19) as they no doubt were when the band participated in a service at Christ
Church, Knottingley, the same month. (20)
The move to establish a glassworks band may have precipitated the
reorganisation of the Town Band in 1882. Certainly, there exists at least
one source which connects certain personalities with both organisations.
Recalling days of yore in newspaper correspondence in 1977, Mrs Hodgson
Walker referred to her father, John Hartley Shaw, as the former bandmaster
of the Town Band at the same time when Sam and Jack Marshall were tutors.
Other familial members of “the first Knottingley Brass Band” to be mentioned
were the Hargraves, Drapers, Rowbottoms and the Pollards. Extant documentary
evidence links individuals from the above named families with subsequent
membership of the Town Band and it would appear, therefore, that for reasons
which are unclear, a ‘breakaway’ occurred in 1882, with John Shaw and
perhaps others, leaving the Town Band to form the band of Bagley, Wild &
Co., thus necessitating the reorganisation of the Town Band and prompting
the subsequent but erroneous impression that the Band was established at
that date. (21)
The existence of two bands within the town, each frequently referred to in
the local press as ‘Knottingley Brass Band’, makes definition of their
individual activities almost impossible during the ensuing decades. Indeed,
the common nomenclature serves to suggest that the Town Band and the Works
Band and their common link with John Shaw, were one and the same. Such is
not the case, however, for aprt from the historical evidence that the Town
Band was in existence some twenty years before the formation of the Works
Band (indeed, a decade before the existence of the glassworks with which the
latter was associated) there is clear proof that they were separate
entities.
Continued on page two...
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