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The Diary of a Victorian Bandsman British publishers of military music 1770-1880
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The Diary of a Victorian Military Bandsman
Shepherd’s career with the band With the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, militia regiments were embodied. From the end of February 1855 until the following December, the 1st Devon Militia was stationed at Newport, Gwent, and Shepherd’s memories of the period make it clear that the band had a function beyond the purely military. While in South Wales they undertook a number of engagements at civilian events. Shepherd remembers playing at a flower show in Usk and at the opening of the Crumlin Viaduct. Such engagements were not at all unusual – reports of them can easily be found in newspapers of the period (see Illustrations 3, 4 and 5, for example). Shepherd also remembers the band’s involvement in the opening of the East Bute Dock in Cardiff, which took place on 20 July 1855. The 1st Devon Militia took part both in a great parade that made its way from Cardiff Castle to the docks, and in the subsequent festivities. Several other bands were also involved, and the Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian (21 July 1855, p. 6) reported that:
Amongst the other bands, Shepherd was clearly impressed by ‘a very excellent one’ that had come ‘down from the Hills from Some Ironworks’ (p. 4). This was the Cyfarthfa Band, a quite brilliant virtuoso band, which was actually established as a private band – not a works band as Shepherd supposed – by Robert Thompson Crawshay, the great magnate who owned the Cyfarthfa ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, some 25 miles north of Cardiff. (There is much more about the Cyfarthfa Band elsewhere on this website.) The report rather gives the impression that the Cyfarthfa Band was regarded as the musical highlight of the event, and that the other bands were largely there to make up the numbers, informing readers, for example, that:
The reporter may not have intended to cast aspersions on the band of the 1st Devon Militia, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Cyfarthfa Band was a source of much greater excitement. It certainly seems to have been the Cyfarthfa Band that took pride of place in the opening ceremonies (according to the newspaper account, it was the only band that played to mark the entry of the first ships into the new dock). However, the Royal Glamorgan and 1st Devon Militia bands were called upon to play later in the day at a dinner presided over by the Mayor, supplying ‘appropriate airs between the toasts’. From Newport, the regiment was sent to Limerick, where it remained until peace was declared in 1856. Again, Shepherd recalls the band performing regularly at civilian functions, including a weekly engagement to play in Perry Square, and numerous concerts and balls such as the highly topical concert ‘in aid of Miss Nitingales fund’ (p. 10). The regiment was ordered home in June 1856. (The voyage was not without incident – Shepherd describes nearly being shipwrecked off Cornwall (pp. 12-13), an episode that was covered as high drama in the pages of the Exeter Gazette for 21 June.) They landed at Weymouth, and Shepherd recalls the band playing ‘Nelly Bly’ and ‘The Old Folks at Home’ as they marched into barracks (p.14). Before their march back to Exeter, the regiment was presented with new colours (p. 15). Weymouth was clearly thrown into a state of tremendous excitement by the ceremony, and the event was reported in detail in the Weymouth Journal. Here Shepherd seems to have got his dates wrong by several days, as he gives 22 July as the date of the ceremony, whereas it is actually reported in the newspaper on 18 July in the following terms:
The proceedings are described at length, and the report continues:
Subsequent years seem not to have matched the excitement of Shepherd’s period of service during the Crimean War. He dispatches the 1860s in a single sentence, and deals briefly with the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. The high points of this period were his appointments in 1874 as Sergeant of the Band and in 1878 as Sergeant of the Staff. He was discharged from the regiment on 14 July 1889, aged 57, having served 35 years. However, his memoir does not stop there. His devotion to the band was such that, although he had received his discharge, he retained his position as a bandsman until 1906 or 1907 – the memoir suggests that he had not actually retired at the time of writing (p. 31). It is not clear what arrangement allowed him to carry on, or whether this was routine or unusual, but it is clear that it was the case. Shepherd’s longevity as a bandsman may have made him something of a minor local celebrity, for in 1888 he was mentioned in the Exeter Gazette (21 June) in a report on the presentation of the new colours: ‘the only man on parade who has been with the old colours since their presentation in 1856 was “old Shephard,” as he is known among his comrades, now a Sergeant in the Band.’ The report goes on to describe the ceremony:
The Bishop of Exeter then consecrated the new colours, and the hymn ‘Brightly Gleams our Banner’ was sung to the band’s accompaniment. Speeches followed, and the ceremony concluded:
Again Shepherd’s memory seems to have failed him a little here, as he recalls this happening in 1887 (p. 23). The beginning of the twentieth century provided another period of duty (1900-1901) ‘on account of the South African War’ (p. 24). He recalls this episode in some detail, partly because it was so recent, but also no doubt because of the excitement of the regiment and its band again leaving Devon, to be stationed this time in Jersey. As in South Wales and Ireland, the band played for civilian engagements – indeed, the arrival of a military band created so much interest that they were booked before they had even set sail for Jersey (p. 26). This is the only point in the memoir where Shepherd also gives a sense of the band’s duties in the Mess, recalling an evening when they were playing ‘a Selection called the Unfinished Symphony’ to entertain the officers. It was to be unfinished in more ways than one – as Shepherd recounts, the mess steward interrupted the performance to announce the death of Queen Victoria (p. 27). Shepherd recalls funeral services for the Queen at which the band played over the ensuing days – though, as he says, there was no music in the Mess for several weeks (pp. 27-8). It is one of the few points in the memoir where he mentions repertoire. There was a service at the parish church in St Helier where the band played funeral marches by Beethoven and Chopin, and a repeat of the same service in the afternoon because so many people were unable to get in to the morning service. At another service, the band played Handel’s ‘Dead March’ from Saul. The regiment left Jersey in July 1901, but the band was given permission to remain behind for more than two months to fulfil civilian engagements (p. 29) – a mark of the importance of military bands in civilian musical entertainment, particularly for communities outside the big metropolitan centres. Shepherd’s account, backed by newspaper reports of the some of the events at which the band played, says enough about repertoire and about the varied contexts within which the band performed to illustrate the nature and breadth of military band repertoire, the striking variety of functions of a regimental band, and its significance in civilian life as a source of musical entertainment in an era that predated the mass availability of radio and recorded music. |