At a Town's meeting on 8th June 1888 it was decided to have a free subscription band in Harrogate. The residents of Harrogate subscribed to provide a permanent brass band, appointing J. Sidney Jones, bandmaster of the Leeds Rifles, as its conductor. The band gave its opening concert in the Montpelier Gardens on 16 July 1888 conducted by Mr J. Sidney Jones.
The demands on the bandmaster were great. Each day at 7.30, a performance was given to arouse the ailing ones to take the "waters" and to shake off their early morning fatigue. (Click here for a typical day's routine!) Tall hats were de rigueur headgear for the bandsmen in their four performances a day for a wage of not more than £1 a week. Jones, the indefatigable, bullied, cajoled and inveigled players and patrons alike until he got what he wanted, and what he did want placed Harrogate in the forefront of the musical world. He described himself as a cart horse, but it was a horse of extraordinary sinew.
Jones was an itinerant child musician in his native Suffolk. He trained at Kneller Hall after enlisting in the Dragoon Guards and qualified as a bandmaster. Moving to Yorkshire he coached brass bands before moving from Leeds Rifles to Harrogate. He died at the age of 64.
18th Annual Report of the Harrogate Temperance Prize Band - 1908
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
In presenting the Eighteenth Annual Report and Balance Sheet, the Committee feel that the Band may be congratulated in maintaining its position in the town as a high-class Band, and that great credit is due to the Bandsmen for the way in which they have worked together to keep up the good name which the Harrogate Temperance Band has in the town and district.
On turning to the Balance Sheet, the year commenced with a balance due to the Treasurer of £7 0s. 1d., with an expenditure during the year of £46 11s. 8d. - total expenditure of band fund £53 11s. 9d. The income for the year to this fund was £68 2s. 5d., leaving a balance in the hands of the Treasurer of £14 10s. 8d.
During the year we purchased a New Uniform for the Band at a cost of £54 11s. 0d., and the income to this fund was £29 8s. 5d., leaving a balance due to the fund of £25 2s. 7d. The total income for the whole of the funds amounts to £97 10s. 10d. The total expenditure for the whole of the funds is £108 2s. 9d, leaving a balance due to Treasurer of £10 11s. 11d., showing the Band to be in a flourishing condition.
The Committee heartily thank the whole of the subscribers and friends for their support during the past year, and trust to have their further support during the present year.
The Committee also desire to thank the Bandsmen and other friends who have given Music and assistance in helping to keep the Band together, and trust to have a continuance of the same during the present year.
The Band have fulfilled the following engagements during the year:- Bilton Grange School Sports, Burton Leonard Friendly Societies' Sunday Parade, Railway Servants' Orphans' Sunday Parade and Meeting, Modern College Sports, Cricket Club Charity Match, Harrogate Agricultural Show, Co-operative Society's Children's Gala, Roundhill Sports, Kirkby Overblow Horticultural Show, Primitive Methodist Sunday Meeting in the Bogs Field, Friendly Societies' Hospital Sunday, six times at Kursaal, three times for the British Women's Temperance Association, and have given Free Sacred Concerts for Friendly Societies' Council in aid of the Gala Funds for Harrogate Infirmary, Grove Road Brotherhood, Citizen's Temperance League, Harrogate Football Club, Pleasant Saturday Evening Concerts, and alternate Sundays in the Valley Gardens and Bogs Fields.
Yours on behalf of the Committee:
J.H. SHIELDS, Hon. Secretary.
S. COUPLAND, Assist. Secretary.
In addition, this year the band had some 180 subscribers who gave a total of of £33 to funds, equalling the income from engagements (excluding collections), and a figure of £18 was paid to the Conductor.
In 1926 a song was composed and sung (to an unknown tune) extolling the virtues of the Harrogate Band. Click here for the scurrilous verses! This was part of a suite of songs called the "Harrogate Songbook". Three of these have recently been set to new music by Donald Avison and recorded on the Harrogate Bands CD Made in Harrogate
Harrogate Temperance Band, North Yorkshire, England, c. 1920
Click the picture to enlarge it
Harrogate Silver Prize Band
By the early 1930s, the Band had changed its name to the Harrogate Silver Prize Band and the financial position was very similar - although there was a significantly reduced number of subscribers. The Band's income and expenditure was not much increased (around the £130 level)
A highlight of this period was the Band's two visits to the Crystal Palace in London to compete in the National Brass Band Championships Finals in 1929 and 1930.
The Band broke up at the start of World War Two and reformed in 1947 only to disband in 1956. Members of the Committee safeguarded the instruments which were ultimately used by other bands. The Band's sheet music was acquired by the Summerbridge & Dacre Silver Prize Band, where it still resides. The last surviving member of the Harrogate Temperance Band, Bill Jewitt, originally euphonium, lately baritone, was 96 in May 2002 and until the beginning of 2002 was Britain's oldest active bandsman, playing with Summerbridge & Dacre Band. Another veteran member of the Harrogate Silver Band is Arthur Layfield, who joined in 1947, and who now conducts the Summerbridge & Dacre Band. A new history of the Summerbridge & Dacre Silver Prize Band has just been published.
Harrogate Silver Prize Band, 1937 - The Rose Gardens, King's Road, Harrogate
Back row, left to right: H. West, F. Vardy, F. Wain, J.Todd, S. Moseley, ? Cox, C. Stanway; Middle row: C. Thompson, J. Godfrey, F. Hutchinson, Arthur Cook, C. Barker, A. Gillyon, Frank Moseley, Jim Moseley, L.Turner; Front row: L. Blakeborough, J. Roberts, ? Cox, P. Shields, R. Littlewood (bandmaster), D. Britton, C. Ramsey, ? Lavender, J. Jordon.
Harrogate Silver Band, c. 1942
Click the picture to enlarge it
Harrogate Borough Band
This was Harrogate's second brass band and was roughly contemporary with the Harrogate Temperance Band - being in existence from the start of the century until it too disbanded at the outbreak of World War Two. One instance where the band was somewhat partisan in its playing is recorded here:
In 1901, the impending County Council election resulted in some colourful exchanges between the supporters of Harrogate's Conservative candidate, Samson Fox, and Liberal candidate JH Wilson. Although both men exercised punctilious politeness to each other in public, their supporters were less fastidious, and the newspapers reported that respective public meetings were being interrupted with "unseemly behaviour". Both men had served terms as Mayor, and both were experienced businessmen, Wilson having been a skilled dispensing chemist, and Fox running the Leeds Forge and having amassed a multi-million pound fortune.
A claim by Fox's men he had been the inspiration behind the building of the Royal Baths was countered by a reply from Wilson's men that the idea had been that of the late Alderman, Richard Oliver, and Messrs Carter, Fortune and Ward, and moreover, that Fox had not even been a councillor when the matter was first introduced. In the event, the public supported Fox with 2,067 votes. Wilson receiving a close 1,875 votes, and a triumphant Samson Fox addressed the public from a window of the Conservative Club.
It had been rumoured before the election, that JH Wilson's plan to give a big outdoor speech had been thwarted by the sudden appearance of the new Borough Brass Band which, by coincidence, had just been provided with smart uniforms by Samson Fox, who had also given the band the large and valuable music library of the late Leeds Forge Brass Band. Apparently the band had played the national anthem, Rule Britannia, Hearts of Oak, and other patriotic airs, whenever Wilson tried to begin his speech.
Out of 4,967 burgesses with voting rights, 3,954 actually voted, and a clearly disgusted Herald editor noted that two persons had attempted an electoral impersonation, such a thing only having been recorded once before in the town's electoral history.
Since the early 17th century the waters of Harrogate had been taken by locals and visitors to the area. The chalybeate springs of High Harrogate were originally the more popular, but by the middle of the 18th century doctors had discovered a satisfactory method of using the sulphur wells of Low Harrogate for internal treatments and extended their use in baths. A separate chalybeate spring was found, where the Royal Hall now stands, which effectively made it independent of High Harrogate. The Pump Room was opened, a Promenade Room built and the Valley Gardens laid out.
The first honorary secretary of the Harrogate Bath Hospital, Pickersgill Palliser, was a man of many talents who in 1834 started to produce a list of The Company at Harrogate - a list of visitors to the town and where they were staying. As time went on he added information about events, church services and advertisements, and by 1836 he realised that a newspaper had evolved from the List of Visitors and he adopted the name The Harrogate Advertiser. In an edition of the List of Visitors was a notice of the "High Harrogate Band", consisting of harp, violins, clarionet, flagiolet and 'cello.
According to a record of 1845, the Band (probably a different outfit altogether) "played every evening in the season" on the Green at High Harrogate.
The 1931 (12th) edition of the Ward Lock Illustrated Guide Book to Harrogate notes that "Bands play before breakfast in the Crescent Gardens, and in the afternoon in the Valley Gardens. Admission free."
