The Spencer's Steel Works Prize Band

 

 Win the gold medal. 

Take a first place. 

Bring home the silver cup.

All prizes of competitions

but not always just in sports.

Musical pursuits can also reward

players for excellence.

 

 

 

The accolades are rewards for achievements,

for teamwork, and superior performance.

And the value is priceless as a prize 

measures a superlative

that needs no qualification.

For in that moment they were the best.

This is a story about two postcards of prize bands,

one famous and the other forgotten.

But both representative of a great musical tradition—

the British brass band.

 

 

 

The Spencer's Steel Works Band was a band made up of largely working-class men from Newburn, England, most employed at the steel mill there. It began as the Walbottle Temperance Band in about 1894 and in 1897 was reorganized with sponsorship from the Newburn steel works. During the last part of the 19th century Britain enjoyed a phenomenal surge in amateur music with countless community choirs, orchestras, and bands. Supposedly in 1896 there were 40,000 brass bands listed in the census for the United Kingdom, but this number likely included groups from churches, schools, the Salvation Army, and the military too. In any case the number of brass bands like the Spencer's Steel Works Band was certainly beyond 14,000 during the height of brass popularity.

Many or the bands were connected to industrial centers like mining, manufacturing, but quite a few were started as part of the Temperance and Christian movements. The Spencer's Steel Works band followed the traditional brass band model of instrumentation with piston valve cornets, altohorns, tenorhorns, euphoniums, slide trombones and tubas in various keys and accompanied by a couple of drummers. The 30 players are led, I believe, by the gentleman in the bowler hat standing to the left of a large prize cup won by the band in a music contest against other brass bands. 

The postcard was sent to a Mr. Bell of Brixton Hill in London. The postmark is not entirely clear but I think it reads June 24, 1907 or 09.

 

 

Hope this will find
you well. I have been
wanting to send you
this photo of our band,
but could not get to
know of your address
before now. M–d sends
her love, & she saids she
owes a letter to you  I will
remind her of it.  Sorry cannot
find time to call on you this
time. Kind regards to Mrs. B–
Yours Faithfully
xo.  Roy'ant (?)

 

 

Spencer's Steel Works was a large steel mill built at Newburn, England on the banks of the River Tyne, near the great industrial city of Newcastle upon Tyne. Established by john Spencer in 1822. At its height the mill employed 1,500 workers making steel plates, springs, and other parts for countless railway, shipping, armaments and mining industries around the world. In the early 1900s the mill's surplus steam also powered generators for the Newburn electric power station. Following the end of WW1 when demand for steel declined, the Spencer Steel Works closed in 1926 and the mill site was demolished in 1933.

 

 

Spencer's Steel Works, Newburn c.1920
Source: Newcastle Libraries

 

Newcastle Daily Chronicle
16 December 1907

 

 

British newspapers regularly reported on brass band contests like this one in December 1907 when the Spencer's Steel Works band played at a contest in South Shields. There were ten bands, one from an iron works, two from coal mines, a few from temperance and Christian societies, and the Spencer band which won first place, a cup, and £15. If I am correct about the postcard date, the band would need a larger table to display it's prizes.

 

 

According to the website BrassBandResults.co.uk , an encyclopedic compendium of every statistic on every brass band anywhere at anytime in history, the Spencer Steel Works Prize Band entered its first concert in May 1897 at Hartwistle in Northumberland and competed in 81 contests until its last one in Newcastle in November 1925 after which it was disbanded.

 

 

The second image comes from a postcard that was never posted but dates from the first decade of the 20th century. This band had no need to display it's prizes as it had already earned fame from it's many contest wins. It is the Besses o' th' Barn Band the oldest brass band in the world having performed continuously since it was established in 1818.

 

 

 

Originally a mixed ensemble of brass and woodwind instruments, in 1853 it became strictly an all-brass band (with drums of course). It takes its name from the Besses o' th' Barn suburb of Whitefield, Greater Manchester where the band maintains its own a rehearsal building. The 22 musicians here are arranged in an orderly way around their director who is seated center. Almost all the British brass bands in this era wore a quasi-military uniform with more refined decorative embroidery than bands in America or other European nations. Like the Spencer band there are only brass instrument and no woodwinds.

 

Early on in the mid-19th century the members of the Besses Band achieved enough success to establish the band as a limited company in 1897. This business arrangement made the Besses into a professional ensemble with the ability to provide musicians benefits as well as publish their own music and engage composers to write new scores for brass band. With such a long heritage it is no surprise that the Besses o' th' Barn Band competed in many contests, over 708 according to BrassBandResults. Beginning in 1821 with a band contest at the coronation of King Geroge IV where it took 1st prize, followed by another first in 1837 at Queen Victoria's coronation, until as recently as February 2022 when it placed 12th. 

When this postcard was printed the Besses were at the height of popularity and used their celebrity to make a few world tours of the British empire in the early 1900s, traveling to Australia, Canada, Fiji, Hawaii, New Zealand, South Africa as well as the United States. In 1932 the band played 112 concerts during a tour of Canada between August and October. More of their history can be found at their website, www.Besses.co.uk.

 

The Besses o' th' Barn Band have their own YouTube channel where they have a great selection of the band's many recordings that are edited for video. Several date back to the very early years of sound recordings so here is the appropriately titled, 20th Century March, composed by James Ord Hume (aka William German) and recorded to a 78rpm disc by the Besses o’ th’ Barn Band in 1904. The video includes several more postcard images of the band.

 

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We can get a sense of what the contests were like
in this short newsreel from British Pathé
entitled, National Band Contest (1935).

It's interesting that during the entire day

the judges of the contest were secluded

inside a small closed tent next to the bandstand,

guarded by a policeman, and hidden from the bands

so that their decision would be unbiased

and based only on what they heard of each performance.

 

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* * *

 

Many years ago when I lived in London I studied with the horn soloist, Ifor James, who for a time was a director and performer in the Besses o' th' Barn Band. Though my concentration was more on the orchestral horn repertoire I did gain from him an insight into the British brass band traditions and the brilliant technique that infuses the sound of Britain's many virtuoso brass instrumentalists. The musical continuity of Ifor James' band heritage and its performance style is something I am proud to have earned a connection to, even if a very small one. It's a prize to treasure.

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where a prize photo is always a winner.

The Elegant Tuba

 

 For most women a tuba
is not a common fashion accessory.
It's generally too big
to fit into a lady's handbag
and tuba slide grease can leave
unsightly stains on a white blouse.

 

 

 

 But for a few select women
a tuba's gleaming sensuous curves
add a touch of classy refinement
that sparkles more than any gilded jewelry.
 

 

 

The tuba's understated but elegant form
enhances a woman's figure
as well as any violin or flute.
Which is why clever fashionable women
know that a tuba will always complement 

their choice of evening gown or teatime frock.

Today I present a curated selection of portraits
of female tuba players.

 

 

We begin with a cabinet card photograph of young woman dressed in a long dark gown and holding a silvery tuba. Her skirt is made of a very textured fabric and her bodice is a matching satin, I think. It is difficult to be certain of the color, but it looks more black than the sepia tones of dark blue or deep red. Her blouse has a high collar and long sleeves in an interesting geometric pattern. She gazes direct into the camera lens of S. P. Eggan of 251-3 Cedar Ave. in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The photographer's stylized embossed logo looks like the initials S. A. Eggan, but the first letter has a larger swirl that makes the letter P. This matches the name Sever P. Eggans who was a photographer in Minneapolis. Born in Norway in 1869, Sever's name first appears as a photographer at 251 Cedar Ave. in the 1888 Minneapolis city directory working with Ole P. Eggan, who I believe was his brother. Yet by the 1892 directory Sever P. Eggan listed his occupation as retoucher for the A. B. Rugg studio. However in the 1897 city directory, Sever P. Eggan returned to 251 Cedar Ave. with his own photography studio, though without Ole P. Eggan who seems to have left Minneapolis. Sever maintained a studio at that location in Minneapolis through the 1920s until his death in 1929. (Many names, including my own, have trouble with alternate spellings, but the directory listing for Eggan included a warning to also check Eagan, Egan, Eggen.)

 

With this business history, and since the studio marked does not read Eggan Brothers, it seems fair to date this photo as no earlier than 1897.  It's curious that the S in the logo resembles the musical symbol for a treble clef. Perhaps Mr. Eggan had an interest in music too. His studio certainly catered to musicians as the second portrait was taken there too.

 

 

This young woman poses with a slightly smaller tuba, which I believe is a euphonium and not a baritone horn. She wears a dark gown of the same material as the previous woman and cut in similar style. Clearly both women are wearing a coordinated formal dress, a style better suited for an orchestra rather than a band concert. 

 

Their two instruments are a similar conical design but of different sizes, the smaller euphonium in B-flat and the larger tuba in E-flat. There are tubas made in larger sizes typically with 4 valves for lower bass notes, but these three valve models would have been the more common bass instruments in bands of the 1890s, with the higher voice of the euphonium assigned the more melodic solo lines. It's interesting that both instruments are polished to a lustrous shine that required the photographer to pay special attention to the studio lighting. I suspect they may even be brand new instruments for the two ladies and might have been the reason they had their photo taken.

* * *

 

 

The third tubist's portrait is a young woman in a dark dress, maybe blue or green, that is made of ordinary matte fabric ornamented with a high collar and some pearl beads on her chest. She holds her tuba securely with an arm through the upper tubing and gazes off to the camera's right. She wears a soft cap, almost boyish with only a hint of brim, if any. It's very like the homemade uniforms worn by many of the "ladies' bands" in my collection.

The photographer's mark reads: R. A. Ewing, Oklahoma City. There was a photographer named Robert A. Ewing in the 1902 Oklahoma City directory, which was the oldest directory available, and he operated a studio until at least 1942. But I was only able to find him in one census record from 1950 that showed he was born in Virginia in 1872. By that time he was retired, so I don't know when he established his photography studio in Oklahoma City. This style of cabinet card might be late 1890s but the grey card stock feels more like early 1900 to me. Oklahoma achieved statehood in 1907 and Oklahoma City is its state capital. In 1890 the city's population was 4,151 and by 1900 it grew 142% to 10,037. During the next decade it jumped an astounding 540% taking the population to 64,205. 

Her instrument is similar to the euphonium, but it may have more cylindrical tubing, in which case it would be a baritone or tenor horn. The nomenclature of the low brass family is very confusing and I'm only a horn player so I won't try to explain it. Basically it's all about the plumbing.

* * *

 

 

I can't resist including one more tuba player from about the same era, roughly 1895 to 1905, that I featured in a story from November 1917, The Elegant Low Brass of Philadelphia. She is seated in the studio of Franz Meynen, a German photographer who emigrated to Philadelphia in 1874. It's one of my favorite portraits with the tubist seated and resting her arm thoughtfully on her upturned tuba, almost as if she was a Grecian or Roman marble sculpture. Her instrument is another E-flat tuba like the one in Minneapolis, but not as shiny. Follow the link to see her trombone companions.

 

Minneapolis and Oklahoma City, not to mention Philadelphia, were becoming major centers for culture when these photos were produced. Beginning around 1885 both Minneapolis and Oklahoma City had female bands and orchestras that performed in their city's parks and theaters, either as touring companies or organized by local talent. Unfortunately tuba players, male or female, do not get much notice in newspapers so I am unable to offer a name for any of these four women. And because there were so many different groups I can't presume to identify their musical group either.

 

All we are left to admire
is their beauty, poise, charm,
and good fashion sense
to include a tuba in their portrait.

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where mothers always know best.

Music for an Aeroplane

It was a modern age of wonder.
Things once impossible were now ordinary.
People flew across the sky in powerful machines.
The sound of voices and music traveled over invisible air waves.
Mankind attained an incredible new perspective
with the invention of airplanes and radio.

It didn't take long before
someone imagined combining the two.

How about a music concert
inside an airplane moving faster than a locomotive
and broadcast live over the radio?
How cool would that be?

 

 

 

This large 8" x 10" photograph shows about 16 musicians, dressed in winter overcoats and hats, crowding onto a precarious wooden stairway to board a large airplane, all while playing their instruments—accordion, guitars, trumpets, trombone, saxophones, double bass, and drums. They seem to be directing their attention to a man standing underneath the airplane which is marked Heracles, Imperial Airways. 

The back of the photo provides an explanation along with useful names, date, and place.

 

JACK HYLTON"S BAND BROADCASTS

FROM AN AEROPLANE                            15.12.33.

 

   Jack Hylton and his famous band played up in an aeroplane over
London today, and the programme was picked up by the Post Office
receiving station at Baldock, Herfordshire, and sent from there
by land line to Faraday House, and then to the Post Office
Exhibition in the Strand, London.  This musical experiment was to
test a new Post Office transmission apparatus.
O.P.S.     Jack Hylton and his band entering the air liner
               at Croydon.
                    HHS/S Keystone.

 

 

The photo was distributed by the Keystone View Company of Fleet Street in London. The band's comical pose boarding the aircraft was to promote their special radio broadcast for the B.B.C. This show would use a new wireless system that would transmit a live music concert over the radio airways as the musicians were literally traveling through the air. This press photo of the event ran in several British newspapers over the next few weeks. The man standing left was the band's leader, Jack Hylton. He and his orchestra were used to attracting attention as they were then one of the most poplar music groups in Britain.

 

 

London Daily Telegraph
15 December 1933

Jack Hylton (1892-1965)
Source: Wikipedia

Jack Hylton, born John Greenhalgh Hilton in 1892, was an English pianist, composer, band leader and impresario whose music became popular in Britain during the 1920s and 30s. He developed a light high society dance music that combined elements of popular songs with a British interpretation of American swing jazz. In 1930 it was estimated that of the 50 million records sold in the UK in the previous year, 1929, between 4 and 5 million discs were recorded by Jack Hylton and his orchestra.

 

By 1933 his orchestra had already made several successful tours of Britain and Europe and were recognized for their recordings and live radio broadcasts, mainly over the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, which established Great Britain's first national radio network in 1922.

 

Handley Page H.P.45 'Heracles'
Source: ipernity.com

The aeroplane that they were embarking on was named Heracles, a Handley Page H.P.42/45, manufactured by the British aviation company Handley Page specifically for Imperial Airways, one of the first commercial long-range airlines that operated from 1924 to 1939. When this bi-plane aircraft was introduced in 1931, it set a record in its first years of service as being the largest airliner in the world with a wingspan of 130 ft (40m) and a length of 92 ft (28m). It was designed to carry 24 passengers with a crew of 4. Each of the four  9-cylinder air-cooled radial piston engines generated 490 hp which was sufficient for the Heracles to reach a maximum speed of 120 mph and a cruising speed of 100mph. Only eight H.P.42/45 airliners were ever built, with the model HP42 designed to carry lighter loads over longer distance to places like Egypt or India, and the HP45, which was the Heracles model, modified for heavier cargo over shorter distances in Britain and Europe.

 

 

Kingston ONT Whig-Standard
11 January 1934

This aeroplane stunt was successful but did not attract much interest in America, perhaps because Jack Hylton and his orchestra had not yet toured there. However Canadian newspapers picked it up and reported a few more details. 

 

The flight lasted about an hour and a half and the live concert was devised as a test of a new type of radio apparatus for the General Post Office which was then in charge of Britain's radio system. Every member of Jack Hylton's band took part except the pianist and the harpist–whose instruments were too big for the plane–and the flutist. whose flute was broken just before the band left Croydon airport.  The main tune they played was "I'm on the Telephone Now."

 

 

* *

 

The interior of the Heracles aeroplane was clearly not very spacious and Jack Hylton's musicians must have felt cramped to play their instruments during the flight, not to mention suffering with the engine and wind noise. Nevertheless Jack Hylton and his orchestra performed at their scheduled time and were heard over a few radio stations around London. The photo gives us a sense of scale of this adventure but not of the music. But fortunately there was a movie camera filming the action for a British Pathé newsreel short, On The Air - In The Air! With Jack Hylton And His Band and through the magic of YouTube we can watch and listen to this historic occasion.

 

 

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As I was searching for newspaper accounts of this 1933 BBC concert, I happened upon an article that mentioned an earlier radio concert from the air that was attempted in November 1925.

 

 

London Weekly Dispatch
8 November 1925

This concert would involve male and female vocalists from London's theatres accompanied by a small ensemble, the Savoy Orpheans. They would be flying at 10,000 feet in another earlier Imperial Airways airliner, a Vickers Vanguard Type 170. 

 

 

 

Vickers Type 170 Vanguard, circa 1924
Source: The Internets

This aircraft was also a double wing design developed towards the end of World War 1. It had a wingspan of 87 ft (27m) and length of 54ft (16.5m). It was powered by two Rolls-Royce Condor III water-cooled V12 engines, each capable of 650 hp. The Vanguard had a maximum speed of 112 mph and could reach an altitude of 16,400 ft (5,000 m). Like the Heracles, the passenger cabin was enclosed, but the pilot's cockpit was open. It could carry 22 passengers with a 2 man crew. This airliner was originally planned for service between London and Paris, but later included a route to Brussels and Cologne.\

 

Leicester Mercury
10 November 1925

The "concert from the air" was scheduled for 6:45 on 10 November 1925, following a short performance of the Royal Air Force Band at 6:05, a talk by Capt. Douglas Sinclair from the Air Ministry on the civil aviation wireless system, as well as a demonstration of "direction finding from an aeroplane." The concert was supposed to last 15 minutes. The date was important as this was the evening before the seventh anniversary of the end of the Great War. The Prince of Wales would be giving a special Armistice Day message and there was music from several military bands.

 

Unfortunately heavy ground fog in London forced a cancellation and the concert was rescheduled for a few days later. The details were reported in the 25 November 1925 edition of Wireless World, a weekly magazine for British radio enthusiasts. This journal was in its 13th year of publication and rivals the geekiest magazines of our computer age, as it was filled with articles like "Measuring Anode Potential" and "Thermionic Rectifier for Battery Charging"; detailed comparisons of radio tubes and crystal sets; and countless mathematical formulas, graphs, and wiring diagrams.

 

Wireless World
25 November 1925

On page 737, Capt. A. G. D. West described how this was not the first broadcast made from an aeroplane, as two previous wireless transmissions had been made while in flight. But those had been microphones picking up only speech. This exercise was attempting to broadcast music at nearly studio quality level. 

The first tests of the in-flight radio equipment had to overcome the issue of electrical power, so a wind-driven generator supplying 1,500 volts was installed on the aircraft. This introduced another problem because noise from the aeroplane's engines interfered with the sound from the musicians. Situated on either side of the fuselage the big Rolls-Royce engines  were so loud that voices had to be just inches from the microphone to be audible. This issue was tolerable if the engine power was reduced and the plane "glided", but that diminished the air speed, thereby lowering the voltage output of the generator below what was needed for the radio transmitter. Engineers found a solution by finding a place in the cabin for a separate electric motor generator powered by large batteries. 

 

Wireless World, vol. XVII, no. 22, p. 738
25 November 1925

 

 

The final plan was to take the Vanguard up to 10,00 feet, cut down the engines to one third maximum speed, and use the other generator to run the radio transmitter as the plane descended. Considering that the aeroplane would be carrying 20 people, a piano, other musical instruments, and all the heavy equipment for the radio equipment, the scheme limited the concert to only about 15 minutes duration before the pilot would have to return the engines to full power. 

 

I'll let Capt. West finish the story.

 

 

"Arrangements were made that during the concert the various artists and musicians should be as close as possible to the microphones. One microphone dealt with the orchestra , the other one with the artists and the piano. The various parts were balanced up as far as could be done.

It is interesting to note that during the concert in the air it was impossible for any one else to hear actually what the announcer was saying or to hear the artists singing. Mr. Yearsley, of Messrs. Dix, Ltd., who provided the artists for the transmission, kept time throughout by signs; even the musicians themselves heard no other instrument but their own. It was really astonishing that under these circumstances any music at all was received at Keston and re-transmitted; but it was received well, and what was more, the engineers at Keston even sent it on to London in a better condition than they received it, as by the careful use of a form of a filter circuit, they were able to cut out a good deal of the engine noise and thus to purify the music that they received... Listeners on the ground had a much better idea of the music that was going on inside the machine than anybody actually there. It was therefore surprising that the re-transmission was so good."

 

 

 

Though the broadcast in 1925 did prove that music could be made in the air, I don't know if the BBC ever tried another "concert from the air" before repeating the concept with Jack Hylton and his orchestra in December 1933. The two aeroplanes were similar enough in cabin features that I think the in-flight entertainment was equally challenging for performers and radio audience to hear.

 

Both musical flights were genuine experiments in radio technology and aviation that revealed a number of problems and obstacles that would require many years, if not decades, to overcome. I don't believe these "concert from the air" were really expected to generate ticket sales for Imperial Airways or wireless radio sales for the BBC. But they did introduce a new perspective for the world that continues into our modern times whenever we take our seat on a 747, buckle up, plug in our earbuds and switch on the in-flight entertainment video screen to search for something to distract us for a few hours.

 

 

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I can't resist including one last video of the Heracles, Imperial Airways Handley Page H.P.45  preparing for flight operations at Croydon Airport in about 1935. Looking at this ungainly two-wing airliner from the vantage point of 2022 leaves me wondering if I would have had sufficient courage to climb on board the Heracles to play a concert in the air. At the very least I would have demanded double pay. Those were some brave musicians back in the day.

 

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 This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where the conductor will always hold the bus.

The Unknown Orchestra

 

 

Lacking any marks for who, when, or where
the fate of most vintage photographs
is reduced to basic curiosity.
Who are these people?

In my collection there are hundreds
of such anonymous photographs of musical groups.
Small clues in this grainy 10" x 8" print suggest
these musicians posed for a camera
at some vague time in the late 19th century
somewhere in the United States.
But finding their personal details
are regrettably impossible.
Were some of the men brothers?
Father and son?

 

 

 

 

 

A cello and a snare drum
are not out of place in an orchestra.
But what kind of orchestra would include
a double-bell euphonium?
A novelty solo instrument
usually found in brass bands. 

And what about the dog
lying down in front like a sack of potatoes?
What position did this canine
hold in the orchestra?

 

 

 

 

 

 Yet for sheer humor of the human condition
nothing beats a photo with funny face.
Any flutist with such a schnoz and mustache
must have been a remarkable character
even if it was a theatrical fake disguise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It's proof that even a photograph
of an unknown orchestra
can be a priceless artifact of music history.

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where everything has gone to the dogs this weekend.