Repatriated to the UK: the first ‘People’s Song Book’

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Reunited!


Book 1 of The People’s Song Book (1905) finally reached me, yesterday. Repatriated back to the UK from Virginia, it was beautifully packaged and looks, outwardly, in good condition for its age. Inside is the most fragile paper I have ever encountered. And I’m not kidding! I have done some repairs with library-standard transparent Filmoplast, but the pages tear if one so much as lifts them too quickly to turn over, so I doubt I’ll be using it on the piano much.

Repurposed

Nonetheless, I have pretty much answered my own question: John Leng & Co’s The People’s Friend Students’ Song Book of 1939 derived half of its songs from Book 1 of their earlier The People’s Song Book, and half from Book 2 (1915). Both books, with Tonic Sol-Fa above the staff notation, were compiled by Nimmo Christie (1855-1920), a Dundee music teacher and music critic. For many years he wrote for the Dundee Advertiser, the first Dundee newspaper that John Leng edited. Christie’s sister was a journalist on the same paper.

Christie actually compiled several song books of this type. His name doesn’t appear inside either of The People’s Song Book volumes, but there’s sufficient evidence in contemporary Dundee newspapers. I’m completely convinced. Since he also conducted the Leng Medal concerts – and other school concerts – for a few years, there’s a pleasing tangential overlap with my Leng Scottish Song research, too.

Now, if the later People’s Friend Students’ Song Book derives from the two earlier collections, is there any more to say? Well, yes.

‘A-Roving’

The front cover of the free supplement, The People's Friend Students' Song Book

There is one extra song which is in neither earlier book. Back and forth I went, looking through the section indices and the music itself. But ‘A-Roving’ (also known as ‘At Number Three Old England Square’) is categorically not there. An early appearance of this song was in the Canadian Camp Fire Choruses of 1887, ‘Presented to Members of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces With the Compliments of The Compilation Committee of the University of Toronto Song Book’. Oxford University Press reprinted it in 1916.

The song is also in Bayley & Ferguson’s Scottish Students Song Book – but although it’s the same tune, the piano arrangement is different, so it wasn’t just lifted.

Which begs the question, why did John Leng & Co. insert the song into their later publication? I suspect it may simply have been the choice of a well-known song that would fill a blank page.  I cannot find any reason why this particular song was included, and certainly no link to the by-now long-deceased Nimmo Christie.

No matter.  Community singing and family sing-songs were for many years a popular form of amusement for folk in many walks of life. Evidently, students were no different. It says something for the repertoire that it was still considered worth reproduction in this free supplement in The People’s Friend, a quarter of a century later.

Related Post

You may also like to read my blog post of 8 March, The People’s Song Book No.2

The People’s Song Book No.2 (published by John Leng)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

It stands to reason. If I’m researching the John Leng Scots Song competitions, then I might also be interested in this firm’s publications. Not, of course, that there’s any direct link between Leng’s trust fund and the firm’s later publications.  They published general material, magazines and newspapers, and only a handful of music titles.  However, this means that what music they did publish would be of a kind suited to the mass market. 

‘For the people’

Is it any surprise that, amongst the ‘Aunt Kate’s’ housekeeping and embroidery books, there might also be dance music and national songs? Which of course indicates their recognition of how popular national songs actually were.

The mythical ‘Aunt Kate’ enjoyed a song!

This week, I bought the second volume of The People’s Song Book, published in 1915. It’s quite an attractive little book, containing 32 Scottish, 33 English, 35 Irish and 34 Welsh songs.

There’s also a section with 32 of the now distasteful genre of ‘minstrel’ songs at the back – blackface minstrelsy, not the homegrown wandering minstrel variety. They are described more insultingly than that, as was the unfortunate custom of that era.

Curiously, these are indicated as a third series of English songs, lower down the page.  (The second series appeared after the Scottish songs.  Remember, this was the second book, so the ‘first series’ of English songs is presumably there.)

Today, we recognise the English and American origins of the minstrelsy repertoire, but I doubt the compilers were hinting at that.  I have written at some length about such songs in my recent monograph – what’s in the present book is no different to those in the collections I’ve already examined.

Notwithstanding this – because we have to recognise that the book is a product of its age, whatever our more informed modern opinion – it would be a strange scholar that acquired book 2, but wasn’t curious about book 1, so I’m excited now to be repatriating the first volume from Virginia.  Perhaps some expat took it with them in their trunk, or had it sent to them as a keepsake?  And now it’s coming home – it feels appropriate.

First song in the 2nd book – emigration!

The funny thing about Virginia  – on a completely unrelated note – is that, a quarter of a century ago, I attended a librarianship interview in Richmond. I didn’t succeed  – but I did start my doctoral studies at home in Glasgow, a year or two later.  None of what I’ve subsequently done, would have been done at all, if I’d become yet another emigrant like those of a century before.

And now a little national song book is making its way home to me.  I’ll be sure to make it welcome!

And More?

Book 1 may answer an intriguing question that arose yesterday. I’m impatient!

Related Post:

You may also like to read my blog post of 20 March, Repatriated to the UK: the first People’s Song Book

World Book Day

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
My two monographs, four contributed chapters, and a People's Friend paperback, on the dining room table, with a vase of daffodils.

Something you may not know is that my first book was by no stretch an academic one; it was actually a People’s Friend serial-turned-paperback, published in 1996.

And Her Family Never Knew

Fiction

Not many people know (there’s a theme here!) that I published 30 short stories and that serial, long before I made my second start at an academic career.  Writing helped finance my first maternity leave, and even enabled me to replace my car at the end of it. OK, it was a comparatively little-used Lada. But it had four gears compared to the previous Lada’s three, and more significantly, I’d earned it through writing. I was proud of that. I owe a big debt of gratitude to D. C. Thomson, who gave me these writing opportunities, and plenty of feedback along the way.

Writing Skills: Clarity

Our Ancient National Airs

I honed my writing skills. Clarity was one thing: a story must progress logically, and readability is crucial. I still try to avoid big words for big words’ sake, unless they are the obvious, unavoidable choice. 

And Writing about People

Writing about people was another skill, and I have continued to enjoy this in my subsequent work.  No, it’s more than enjoyable  – I love it! I’m never happier than when I’m writing about people whose lives I have researched; I feel as though I actually know them. Walking through Edinburgh, their ghosts surround me, and I’ve often reflected that I probably know as many deceased Edinburgh musicians and publishers as live ones!

I turned my PhD thesis (2009) into my first monograph (2013), then came a few contributed book chapters, amongst other writings:-

Book cover: A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland's Printed Music, 1880-1951
A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity

My second monograph was published at the end of 2024.  Research has never occupied as much as half my working week, with the exception of last year’s IASH postdoctoral fellowship, so I have to resist making unfavourable comparisons with other full-time academics’ output; mine doesn’t compare.  But, taken in context, I can hold my head up pretty well.

But enough of celebrating my books for World Book Day – I need to get back to the research that will ultimately, I hope, give rise to my third monograph. I’m making up for lost time …

Book Stack

  • And Her Family Never Knew
  • Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era
  • ‘Wynds, Vennels and Dual Carriageways: the Changing Nature of Scottish Music’, in Understanding Scotland Musically
  • ‘National Airs in Georgian Libraries’, in Old Songs, New Discoveries: Selected Papers from the 2018 Folk Song Conference
  • ‘Alexander Campbell’s Song-Collecting Tour: ‘The Classic Ground of our Celtic Homer’, in Thirsty Work and other Legacies of Folk Song
  • ‘Strathspeys, Reels and Instrumental Airs: a National Product’, in Music by Subscription: Composers and their Networks in the British Music-Publishing Trade, 1676-1820
  • A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951

‘February Article of the Month’ – Delighted!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Pink Scottish heather plants

What do you know? I’m delighted to discover that my article is February Article of the Month in vol.56 of the RMA Research Chronicle!

Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles

Good News! Article now Published in RMA Research Chronicle, and an [unrelated] Book Chapter Pending

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Silver Victorian pen and ink stand

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that my RMA Research Chronicle article was now available online as open access. Today, it’s actually in the published issue. Receiving this email is a great start to the day:-

“your article, ‘Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles’, has now been published in Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle! You can view your article at https://doi.org/10.1017/rrc.2025.10009 “

Citation Details

Writing about Tourism

What’s this?, I hear you ask. Why would a musicologist write about tourism? Well, it’s like this: one of the song book titles that I explored in last year’s monograph, The Glories of Scotland, really deserved more space than I could give it in a monograph devoted to a nation’s music publishing. However, the opportunity came up to contribute a chapter to a Peter Lang Publication, Print and Tourism: Travel-Related Publications from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, edited by Catherine Armstrong and Elaine Jackson.

Today, I received the final proofs, which means that the book itself can’t be very far away. I really enjoyed writing this chapter – you could say that it’s decidedly more about publishing history, and tourism, than conventional musicology – and I really look forward to it actually being published.

My chapter (19 pages):-

‘The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song’: Jumping on the Festival of Britain Bandwagon?’

The Glories of Scotland in Picture and Song - a song book published by Mozart Allan of Glasgow. The cover shows various Scottish tartans.
The Glories of Scotland – Mozart Allan’s souvenir songbook
Back cover of The Glories of Scotland song book
Back cover of The Glories of Scotland

Proud Addition to my Published Output: Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Edwardian lady and two little girls. Picture has a floral border.

Published online today, 12 January 2026, in the RMA (Royal Musical Association) Research Chronicle, by Cambridge University Press, on Open Access:- click here.

Writing this article was enormously fulfilling. I had encountered these ladies whilst researching my latest monograph, and I became convinced that they deserved profiling in their own right, and not merely as bit-parts in the larger picture occupied by their husbands, fathers and brothers.

The kernel of the abstract states that, ‘This article focuses on a group of Scottish women who did not make their names solely as art music composers or stellar performers, and for whom piano teaching was only part of their musical work. Four were related to the Scottish music publishers Mozart Allan, James Kerr, and the Logan brothers; the fifth published with Allan and Kerr, and also self-published.’

And all had fulfilling portfolio musical careers. Read on, and I’m sure you’ll agree!

Now, About a Fifth Book of Scottish Songs?

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Nelson's Scots Song Book, Book Four. The last in the series.

Yesterday, I highlighted the 85th anniversary of the Blitz that destroyed Paternoster Row on Sunday 29th December 1940 – and with it, Thomas Nelson’s London premises.

Today, 30th December, we leap forward to 1954. The Second World War had ended nine years earlier. The country was picking itself up again, and James Easson and Herbert Wiseman had published four books of Scottish songs in the series, ‘Nelson’s Scots Song Book, primarily for school use. I’ve done a lot of research into this series, during my Heritage Collections visiting Fellowship at IASH in the University of Edinburgh, so I’m sure you’ll understand that I won’t be saying much about it today – all will be revealed in due course! However, I can reveal that Easson seems to have written a letter to his editor on 30th December 1954, with the expectation of compiling a fifth book. The letter is no longer extant, but the carbon copy of their reply survives.

There was no fifth book.

The Blitz – 85 Years ago, Tonight

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

This week in Scottish publishing history:-

There ain’t no Paternoster Row

Those were the words of a London Bobby (policeman) the following day, when someone asked about the bombing damage.

Luckily, Thomas Nelson had moved quite a few staff up to their Edinburgh offices at the start of the Second World War,  but some remained in London. But the London offices at 35-36 Paternoster Row were destroyed in the Blitz, on Sunday 29 Dec 1940. 

I find myself wondering how strange – indeed, traumatic – it must have been, to head into work the next morning and find first of all, that public transport was disrupted, and then later, by whatever means, to learn that the firm’s premises were flattened.

Temporary premises were found with another publisher, Duckworth at 3 Henrietta Street.  Not until 1954 were larger premises found for Nelson’s at 36 Park Street, in Mayfair.

Publishing in flames on Paternoster Row

Listen to the first episode of this series on Radio 3, 5th May 2025 (14 mins). Series: Books for Brighter Blackouts:- ‘As the BBC marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day, Professor Emma Smith uncovers five unexpected stories about how World War Two changed books, publishing and reading forever.’ The essay is about that very night of destruction. I was thrilled to find that Professor Smith interviews Professor Andrew Pettegree, an eminent authority in the University of St Andrews; and Liam Sims from the University of Cambridge; amongst other experts.

Q. Name a Scottish Song Collector who Features in Both my Books!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
The Songs of Scotland edited by George Farquhar Graham et al. Title page
Songs of Scotland

I couldn’t find a nice anniversary for yesterday, but I certainly have one for today, 28th December.

Journo, music critic, and Scottish song compiler George Farquhar Graham (1789-1867) was the editor of John Muir Wood’s long-lived song collection, Songs of Scotland, first published in 1848.  As such, he featured heavily in my Our Ancient National Airs.  But the book enjoyed an afterlife as one of Bayley and Ferguson’s handsome reprints – The Popular Songs and Melodies of Scotland  – thus getting a mention in A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity, too.

Where’s all this going? Well, today is Graham’s 236th birthday – ‘Many happy returns,  Sir!’

The Popular Songs and Melodies of Scotland

The Editor’s Boxing Day

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Old-fashioned wooden wheelchair

Followers of this blog will already know my penchant for anniversaries. This festive season, I’ve decided to indulge myself – and you, dear reader – with the kind of trivia that doesn’t make it into my research writing.

90 years ago today, Thomas Nelson editor Richard Wilson was languishing in hospital. (On Boxing Day – how miserable!) His daughter had been handling his correspondence whilst he was ill, so he could keep in contact with his boss.  But by Boxing Day, he’d been able to check the page proofs of the Music Guide (a teaching manual) from his hospital bed.

Now, I know he was a dedicated soul – but I also know that the series editor (not his boss) of the teaching series, ‘Music Practice’, was agitating to get these books published as soon as possible. Sooner, if at all feasible!

Let’s hope Wilson’s efforts didn’t delay his recovery …