James S. Kerr, Victorian: the Subsequent History of his Music Business

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
St Andrews Citizen Saturday 9 August 1980, newsclip about the Glasgow Music Centre.

News item from St Andrews Citizen (9 August 1980)

I’ve recently highlighted a new published article focusing on the business history of Kerr’s music shop and publishing business. Kerr died near the end of the nineteenth century, and his wife Mary died in the early twentieth. These early trading years are the focus of the article’s authors:-

Renzo Cordina, Rosa Michaelson & David Power (08 Jun 2026): ‘Pianos, profit and provinciality: a microhistory of a Victorian entrepreneurial firm‘, Management & Organizational History.

As I’ve mentioned, there is a mass of very useful and informative detail about business history, and piano sales in Scotland in this era.

Corrections

However, I’m perturbed by the final paragraph of section 4, the Case Study, which precedes the next section 5, Discussion.  Is there’s a protocol for raising such concerns? I really don’t know, but I don’t think it can be inappropriate politely to express them here.  It is regrettable if misinformation creeps into the story of this significant Glasgow firm.

The Shop in Berkeley Street

The paragraph begins,

The legacy of the James S Kerr business was both the music shop which continued to operate until the 1970s, and perhaps, more lastingly, music publishing which continued into the 21st century.

  • No mention is made of the purchase of the firm by a group of entrepreneurs including singer Robert Wilson, in the mid-20th century.
  • A Berkeley Street shop continued later than the 1970s, as the Glasgow Music Centre. The article contradicts its own statement above, when it references a 1980 news item in the Aberdeen Press & Journal (7 August 1980). (Kudos to the Aberdeen paper for quoting a woman, Ruby Anderson, who was co-director. Hers is a new name to me!). However, the St Andrews Citizen (9 August 1980) is more informative:-

The new premises will house Mozart Allan, Bayley & Ferguson Ltd, Glasgow Music Centre, James S Kerr and Thistle Records, all under the direction of Gavin D Farquhar. The new set-up […] will operate from 65 Berkley [sic] Street.

Addresses: 79 and 65 Berkeley Street

The subsequent information a couple of sentences on, is technically correct – 79 Berkeley Street is still the registered address, as we can see from the Gov.uk company information. And the shop certainly was at no.79 in the 1930s. This is all accurate.

The current company also has its address at 79 Berkeley Street, the same address as the music shop of the mid-1930s and it is still possible to buy copies …

However, this is also just a little misleading, as I can demonstrate, because there were actually two Berkeley Street addresses:-

  • 79 Berkeley Street was the address purchased by the individual who acquired the firm after the Kerr family. To this day it remains the registered address. It did appear at the foot of early publications after Kerr’s had moved from 314 Paisley Road. However, the shop was operating from 65 Berkeley Street, certainly by 1980. See the image at the top of this post.
  • The shop operated into the 21st century, not the 1970s, although latterly the retail side had no connection with Kerr’s Corporation.
  • I did visit the shop in the 1990s, long before I started my research. And to this day, a small Thistle Records sign is still there, a ghostly legacy from the past (just above the railing):-

Publishing History

  • Their music publishing did not really continue into the 21st century. It dwindled away within a few years of Wilson’s untimely death. Whilst copies of Merry Melodies can indeed be purchased, they’re merely reprints. There has been no publishing of new music for many decades.
  • Sheet Music Plus has a couple of reprinted titles in stock, one being Kerr’s Second Collection of Merry Melodies. The cover art is unchanged, apart from the new sans serif font of ‘Kerr’s Second’ at the head of the cover, and sans serif again for ‘James S. Kerr, 65 Berkeley Street Glasgow C.3’ at the foot. (The Third Collection reprint uses a different font for the same address.) But note that although the postcode actually changed from ‘C.3’ to G3 7DX in the late 1960s, it still appears on the reprints.

Evidence for my Assertions

What’s my evidence for my assertions? Quite apart from a lot of research, I’m very proud to know the last owner of the music shop; have spoken at length with a member of Wilson’s family, and I’ve also corresponded with the last surviving board member of Kerr’s Corporation:-

‘In terms of publishing it is a zombie company in that no additions to the catalogue have been made for many years.’

I’ve written quite a lot about the later history of the firm, in three publications: my monograph; my History Scotland article, and the RMA Research Chronicle article about the Scottish women musicians.

  • A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951 (Routledge, 2025)
  • ‘The ‘Scottish Soprano’ and the ‘Voice of Scotland’: the Importance of Nationality to Flora Woodman and Robert Wilson’, History Scotland Vol.25 no.1 (Spring 2025), 74-81 (accessible online via public library e-magazine apps, or you may be able to order a paper copy online.)
  • Article, ‘Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late 19th- and Early 20th-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles‘, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle , Volume 56, April 2025, pp. 97 – 118

Highs and Lows in Edinburgh

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

To get to the National Library of Scotland, it’s a fairly energetic walk uphill from Waverley and across the Royal Mile to George IV Bridge. My FitBit and I agreed that I’d put in a reasonable amount of effort and a reasonable number of steps, so I had the obligatory coffee and cake as reward before heading up to Special Collections.

Snap!

I wanted to look at a piece of music by Rose Smith.  I do own a copy – but needed to see if the NLS one emanated from an earlier or later era than the address on mine. It was, alas, identical, so I can be fairly sure that it was sold – and probably published – between 1891 and 1901. Any earlier, and Rose was barely an adult. Any later, and Mozart Allan’s street number would have been different.

Happy Families

There’s another Smith score in my own collection, where NLS didn’t have the precise ‘you might also like’ title that was advertised on the back. The British Library catalogue entry dates the advertised title at 1927.  I don’t feel inclined to request a digitised copy.  It wouldn’t necessarily confirm Smith’s piece to have been published around then.  Smith’s cover art makes me doubt this. Although the first newspaper mention of a music title can be significant, Mozart Allan filled the inside and back covers of his music with adverts for other things from his back catalogue that the musician might be interested in. These weren’t always contemporary. So unless I can find a definite date earlier than 1925, I’m floundering in the dark.

Anyway, I had two more Mozart Allan scores lined up to view. These were by the same composer as that British Library piece. Both copies turned out to have been printed after 1925, but one of them could initially have been published any time after 1901 – I did find an early newspaper mention.

I’m not sure what I hoped to establish, really. Knowing that a piece of music by someone else, was published between 1901 and 1925, tells me nothing about the Smith piece that I actually want to pin down.

The Saltire Society

Saltire Society/ NLS Event

Somewhat crestfallen, because I hadn’t made much, if any progress, I was happy to have another coffee (and a blueberry muffin, in the interest of scientific comparison with the recipe I use!), then head to a talk about ‘The Women of the Saltire Society’, which was taking place at NLS this afternoon. There were two excellent speakers, Sarah Leith and Magnus Linklater, giving lively and informative presentations. I definitely need to read more about this organisation!

And then … down the News Steps I went. An unimpressive cuppa (frothy milk in tea?) at Waverley, then back to Glasgow. 

As I said, it was a day of highs and lows!  A welcome, relaxed day does no-one any harm.

2nd Birthday of ‘A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity’

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Cake with candle

Whilst I’m whimsical enough to rather like the idea of a birthday cake for a book, I don’t think I’ll go quite that far. Still …

I’m celebrating the second birthday of my second book – A Social History of Amateur Music Making and Scottish National Identity. It was reviewed by Soundyngs in January 2025 – https://soundyngs.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/…/review-a…/ (Happily, the paperback and Kindle versions are affordable!)

Since then? Well, I have a couple of research strands on the go at present:-

1. Leng Medal Memories in Dundee, my research sponsored by an Athenaeum Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. This is really coming together now – I’m working on an article and planning an event.

2. Then there’s the research into a forgotten woman Glasgow composer. I wrote an article in which she was one of the main characters, published a few months ago:- https://www.cambridge.org/…/85AB3A5B58392CEE7FCE07E7009… I have an idea for an event there, too. But I’d better get the first event tied up before I plan the second!

Image by bise eise from Pixabay

Noted! More Scholars have Written about James S. Kerr’s Music Business

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Piano tuner at work

If you were interested in James and Mary Kerr, proprietors of James S. Kerr’s piano and music publishing concern, then you’re spoilt for choice today.

Amateur Music-Making

Not only do they feature in my book (now two years old), A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951 … (where you’ll also find out more about dance instructor and dance hall lessee Mr Orr Robertson, not to mention the later history of Kerr’s firm, including the years when it was no longer owned by the Kerr’s!) …

Scottish Women Musicians

But Mary also gets her own significant mention in my RMA Research Chronicle open access article, ‘Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles’ … along with Kate Logan, whose connection with the Logan publishing firm diverged after her brother-in-law and husband’s publishing firm went bankrupt; not to mention Euphemia Allan (of Mozart Allan fame) and Rose Smith.

Scottish Professional Artistes

The later history of Kerr’s firm, after it became Kerr’s Corporation, is mentioned in my book, but also in my 2025 History Scotland article:-

‘The ‘Scottish Soprano’ and the ‘Voice of Scotland’: the Importance of Nationality to Flora Woodman and Robert Wilson’, History Scotland Vol.25 no.1 (Spring 2025), 74-81 (accessible online via public library e-magazine apps, or you may be able to order a paper copy online.)

Management & Organizational History

But I have just discovered that there’s now a new article about Kerr’s business, from an organisational, management perspective, in a Routledge journal which hasn’t crossed my radar up until now. This time, it emanates from the School of Business, University of Dundee, United Kingdom:-

Renzo Cordina, Rosa Michaelson & David Power (08 Jun 2026): ‘Pianos, profit and provinciality: a microhistory of a Victorian entrepreneurial firm‘, Management & Organizational History.

It’s a different kind of article to my own writings, naturally, because the authors’ focus is on Victorian business and piano sales, whilst mine is more about music publishing and individual editors. There’s a wealth of background information about the trade side of piano-selling, which I heartily recommend – that’s not my focus at all.

The basic factual outline of Kerr’s dates and addresses probably do draw on the same sources.

But if you want to know more about the later life of the ‘Kerr’s’ brand, then I have to say my work will offer you more detail; similarly with the Logan firm. Kerr’s are not still publishing; the last surviving very elderly board member advised me that it is now essentially a ‘zombie firm’. Merry Melodies can certainly still be purchased as reprints, but not from Kerr’s, whose business documents are now ‘in a box in a cupboard’.  The premises are no longer a music shop – and the last person who did own the retail business was unconnected with Kerr’s. Again, I know them.

And, let’s be accurate, Baptie’s Musical Scotland (1894) is correctly cited in the references, but incorrectly cited in the text as ‘Scottish Musicians’ (1894), but the page numbers cited are those in Musical Scotland. I’m not aware of a second book with the same date but a different title.

It’s great that Kerr is finally, decisively on the map. (Well … a gap on the map … see my 2023 blog post showing where the first shop was!)

Image by stalkerreklats from Pixabay

One Step Forward: One Woman’s Publishing

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

This week, I turned the internet inside out trying to find a copy of a piano piece by Rose Smith,  which seems only to be available in one or two libraries.  Clearly, I need to update Zotero, because when I eventually found this very run-of-the-mill piece of salon music ….

It was in my own collection. Oops!

I only needed it to see which address it had been published from. Setting it alongside another similar piece by Smith, with a later Mozart Allan address, it serves as a reminder that you can’t assume something was first published from the address on a particular copy. Other music listed on a later-printed copy may give you a  clue that it is from an earlier era. Indeed, the apparently ‘later’ piece has an illustration which simply didn’t look the right era for the publication address.

Now, as for the other music listed, which really does appear no longer to survive … anywhere at all … !

More interestingly, the stylistic difference between these piano pieces and Smith’s later self-published songs is quite significant.  But more about that another day.

‘Plus ça Change, Plus c’est la Même Chose’: Domesticity

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Pot of pink roses, reminding me of my fieldtrips to Rutherglen and Lanark this week

Not long ago, I was bought a copy of The Feminist Art of Walking, by Morag Rose (Pluto Press, 2025). It falls into the category of Gender/Urban Studies, which certainly isn’t in my usual ballpark, but I’m often pleasantly surprised to read something completely different, so I dived in. Did you know that Rose established the Loiterers Resistance Movement (LRM)? You do now.

After my two ‘fieldwork’ outings to Rutherglen and Lanark this week, both entailing a fair bit of walking, it occurred to me that my own walks were a kind of feminist walking, insofar as I was commemorating Rose Smith, a forgotten woman composer who was born in Lanark, grew up and spent her early adulthood in Glasgow, then spent most of her adult life in Rutherglen – and also her mother, the ‘Lanarkshire Poetess’. (Not a bad title for an Englishwoman who had lived in Ireland before the family moved to Lanark!)

Honouring the Trumpet Major

As I walked from the cemetery down to the cenotaph in Rutherglen on Monday, I pondered that Rose would have walked over the same ground – although it would have looked very different. Likewise, her steam train would have traversed essentially the same line between Glasgow and Lanark that I travelled yesterday, and I walked on streets that she, her mother and siblings must have used daily. I even walked past the spot where their house stood. Too late, I realised I could have gone and looked at the Episcopal church that they attended. I glimpsed it, just up the road from the Library, I think, but I was too slow on the uptake and didn’t realise that was it. I was more focused on getting to the cemetery without getting drenched en route! Rose had stood at both those gravesides. Mary-Ann was remembered on the Trumpet Major’s headstone, even though she’d actually died whilst staying with a daughter in England.

Today, however, I’ve stayed at home. It’s not a ‘working’ day, but I didn’t feel inclined to make another expedition. (I need to visit the National Library of Scotland, but I can’t in all honesty justify a trip to Edinburgh when I’m going there next week in any case.)

So, I baked, washed floors and dealt with laundry. (This is the reality of semi-retirement!) I wondered if Mary-Ann or Rose made their own bread, or if they’d have laughed as they informed me that there was a perfectly good baker on the high street? They certainly wouldn’t have had a bread-machine to make the dough for rolls, or a packet-mix for an experimental batch of muffins! (Spoiler alert: they came out fine, but the ones I make from scratch are a nicer texture. And my recipes make more of them!) They’d still have had a ‘pulley’ to dry the laundry – but doing the laundry itself would’ve been much more labour-intensive. The ironing? Yes, that’s easier today, too. I’ve already addressed the question of whether they had paid help – answer, the censuses reveal that they certainly didn’t have anyone living in, apart from when Rose’s children were wee.

So, much has changed – but in my situation, at least, the domestic labour is still entirely, 100% mine. The ironing basket will sit there scowling at me until I deal with it. Nothing will be tidied up or put away unless I do it. And (despite frequently being told to be grateful for the white goods in our kitchen, which ‘do everything’), the business of keeping things going, still seems to be defined as ‘women’s work’. (Don’t condemn me. It’s easier this way. IYKYK.)

However, the relative absence of hard graft today makes me all the more respectful of Mary-Ann and Rose, still writing poetry and music as well as doing all the housework! I suppose their daughters helped them. I bet they didn’t have to be politely asked or cajoled – it was probably accepted that this was what was expected of them.

When I go into town next week, Rose’s ghost may well be hanging around the old Glasgow Athenaeum, too. There’s no denying the School of Music opened doors for her. Come to think of it – the name has changed, the remit is far wider and the reach is now global – but the opening of doors is something else that RCS has continued to faciliate. ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’, as they say.

Revisiting Folksongs: did they Grow, or were they Made?

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

WordPress reminded me of a blog post I authored a few years ago. Since I’m still thinking both about folk songs and lady piano teachers …I thought I’d share it again. Who wrote the books? Who wrote the songs? Two important questions.

I was being a dutiful music librarian yesterday, when I looked up the Tonic Sol-Fa proponents John Curwen and his son J. Spencer Curwen, to see what of their output was in the Conservatoire library. My first shock was discovering that we had catalogued a couple of Mrs J. Spencer Curwen’s piano teaching books under […]

Folksongs: did they Grow, or were they Made?

Musicologist Goes Further Afield: the Trumpet Major’s Grave

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

More Fieldwork (Almost Literally)

My step-count is exemplary this week! Today, I ventured into deepest Lanarkshire to find Rose Smith’s father’s grave. There’s a map at the cemetery, but it only helps locate the zone. I had a plot number, and a very old black and white photo; eventually, looking for the shape of the gravestone and those around it proved the best method.

Lanark Cemetery

It’s not as easy to decipher as in the old photo, but I was pleased to have found it. Since it also commemorates Rose’s mother, brother and son, Rose and her surviving siblings must have had the engraving updated in or after 1918.

I visited the library whilst I was there – the old building that houses it wasn’t the library when the Smiths were there, but it holds some really old archival materials, and I had a great chat about local history events.

Lanark Library (The Lindsay Institute)

And now? The whole trip was completed in a morning. I wandered off and had a coffee, and headed for the station. I wonder what it was like in Rose’s day?

Lanark Station

Musicologist at Large: Matters of Grave Importance

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Gravestone with pink rose plant. Houses in the background.

Finding myself with more freedom and free time than usual for a short while, I decided I would squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of my unusually unscheduled days. So what else would I choose to do, but go and see where Rose Smith and her family are buried?

It’s Fieldwork, Right?

Following a bus route that I hadn’t followed before, with only a vague idea where I had to walk after that (I have a hopeless sense of direction); and no idea how or when I’d eventually come home, felt decidedly daring and unconfined. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I’m a princess locked up in a tower, but I am normally expected to know, and say, what time I’m returning. From anywhere. Even if it’s dark, I’m on a bus or train, and can’t see where exactly I am.

I don’t entirely love the Traveline Scotland app – I find it a bit clunky – but it did ensure that I got one bus all the way to the cemetery. Googlemaps got me to the cenotaph, half a mile or so away, and Traveline saw me onto a different bus, latte in hand, to get me home again by a circuitous route, but without having to change buses.

But why did I want to see Rose’s grave? I’ve been interrogating that question myself! This is why today was a good time to go exploring, because I didn’t want to have to justify an apparently illogical outing which really doesn’t tell me anything more about Rose and her family. So … why?

I’ve just been assured by a librarian that this counts as ‘fieldwork’, so maybe I shouldn’t be so defensive! Anyway, let me explain why I thought the outing necessary.

Rose’s Music

I’ve looked at Rose’s surviving music, which consists of a handful of songs, and a few simple piano pieces. Several others aren’t even in the British Library or National Library of Scotland. She did write a cello piece – but didn’t publish it. She also wrote a musical play – only three songs from it were published. But it’s capable, tuneful music, and I do feel her name needs to be remembered. So, I included her in an article about four Glasgow women involved in publishing music, and in a conference paper about parental support of women musicians at the turn of the nineteenth-twentieth centuries.

Rose’s Life

I only have one handwritten page written by her, which basically regurgitates what’s available in digitised newspapers, but I’ve also got enough data to write a reasonable, factual biography. By which I mean, I have hard facts aplenty, not enough for a book but certainly for something fairly substantial. I know where she worked; where they lived; and a couple of artistes who worked with her. However, with a few exceptions, I don’t know much about how she felt or what she thought about anything!

Although I haven’t seen any dated music from after her husband died, I do have one piece published by Mozart Allan, which emanates from an address they acquired in the later 1920s. The illustration is quite old-fashioned. But I can’t be certain when she wrote it – I could be looking at a reprint from that later address, or it could have been published after the late ’20’s.

And the Athenaeum Connection

Rose taught junior pianists at the Athenaeum for a couple of years after completing her own studies there. So, she was effectively one of our students, and then one of our teachers. That’s one connection I have with her. The other is that she was a church organist, as I am.

Private Tragedies

I know when Rose and close family members died. It appears her own grave is unmarked, but alongside a headstone for another family member, which names several more.

But what really moves me is the private, personal sadnesses of events that come into any life, but which don’t all beset one person quite as much as they did Rose Smith. She was raised by her widowed mother, who died within a year of Rose’s getting married. Rose’s eldest son was killed at the end of the Great War. Her husband died only a few years later. Her second son died just a month after getting married. 

So that left Rose and her adult daughter. Rose’s daughter, son-in-law and grandson were living with her during her declining years.

As I walked back through the cemetery noticing other headstones, I began to realise that the pattern of tragedies may not have been quite so unusual in those days. I noticed a family where all three children died – one in infancy, one as a child and one as a young adult. And another where one child died as a baby, and the other died as a young man in Australia, with his bereaved parents alone in Scotland. Child deaths and emigration to other parts of the diaspora were part of the everyday experience, as were the thousands of deaths in battle. No less tragic, but far more common.

Now, Rose can’t posthumously know that she has been ‘seen’ (to use a modern expression) or that today’s audience is now hearing about her life and work. But I felt the urge or obligation to recognise this working musician who had attended the same institution at which I now work today. And I think these are the reasons that I wanted to find her grave, and visit it.

Does that make sense?

Leng Medal Update No.8 – Writing

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
pen and ink

I’ve started writing an article about the Leng Scots Song contests. I haven’t yet decided where it’s going to be submitted, or how long it’ll be! I just want to get a rough draft done first.  But what I do know is that I’ve got exactly 12.4 hours of recorded interviews absolutely laden with interesting anecdotes about how the competitors decided what to sing, how they felt about standing up and singing unaccompanied, and lots, lots more. Only earlier this week, I heard from a relative of someone who entered in 1931. I was able to provide them with a photo of the youthful competitor, making for one very happy relative. I feel as though I’ve done a ‘good deed’ this week!

I have lists (of course I have lists; you can’t beat a good list!) of songs, and interviewees, and schools, and song books – sifting through all my gathered information is quite a herculean task in itself.

And now – talking about writing – I’m heading out to a calligraphy class tonight. It’ll be fun to focus on the physical art of putting ink on a page, after a day toiling over a laptop and deciding what to write about, in which order!

Postscript.  On second thoughts … the clumsy, left-handed child that I was, came back to haunt me this evening.  There will be no elegant copperplate from me, tomorrow or any time in the future. (But I can type very fast …)

Image by chris_muschard from Pixabay