Dr Karen McAulay explores the history of Scottish music collecting, publishing and national identity from the 18th to 20th centuries. Research Fellow at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, author of two Routledge monographs.
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.
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.Â
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.
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.
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!’
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 …
It’s not as though I’m unaccustomed to what I’ve been doing in odd moments for the past few days. Over the years, I’ve opened dozens, indeed hundreds of old song books and other music publications, trying to read their prefaces, annotations and harmonic arrangements as though I were a contemporary musician rather than a 21st century musicologist. Looking at music educational materials is likewise not new to me.
Enter Dr Walford Davies and his The Pursuit of Music
He was the first music professor at the University of Aberystwyth, but he was also hugely popular in the 1920s-30s through his broadcasting work – fully exploiting the new technology of wireless and gramophone for educational purposes, and to share his love of music with the ordinary layman wishing to know more about all they could now listen to. This book was written after he’d mostly, but not entirely retired.
It wasn’t exactly what I expected! If I thought he would write about what made the Pastoral Symphony pastoral, or Die Moldau describe a river’s journey, I rapidly had to change my expectations.
His audience was apparently not just the average layperson, but also young people in their late teens, not long out of school. If the reader didn’t play the piano, they were urged to get a friend to play the examples for them. (Considering the book is over 400 pages, you can imagine how long they’d be – erm – captive!)
Dedication
Examples for your friendly pianist to play!
And this was aesthetics, 90 years ago. I struggled to get into the mindset of a layperson wanting to know what music (classical, in the main) was ‘about’, without knowing what a chord was, or realising that music occupies time more than space. Would I have benefited from that knowledge? Would being told in general terms what the harmonic series was, have helped me appreciate the movements of a string quartet? Or Holst’s The Planets?
It wasn’t about musical styles over the years. I didn’t read it cover to cover, but neither did it appear to explain musical form and structure as I would have expected.
Davies’ biographer, H. C. Colles, did comment that it was a mystifying book, and suffered from the fact that the author’s strengths were in friendly and persuasive spoken, not written communication.
I’ve only heard snatches of his spoken commentary, so I can’t really say. Apart from which, Colles made an observation about Davies’ written style. Colles was a contemporary authority who knew Davies personally – and he may have been picking his own words carefully, so as not to cause offence. My own disquiet is more a matter of content: was it what his avowed audience needed, to start ‘understanding music’?
I think I have been mystified enough.
I wonder what the Nelson editors made of this book by one of the great names of their age? They published it, and I think regarded him as a catch, but what did they actually think?!
And did the layperson, assuming they got through the 400+ pages, lay it down with a contented sigh, feeling that now they understood music?
You can look as hard as you like, for as long as you like, with as much concentration and determination as you can muster from every inch, every fibre of your body … but not everything you want to find, will have survived to the present day, whether in archives or attics, boxes or basements.
Thus, the Thomas Nelson archive may have a handlist, but even the handlist (a second or third version of a handlist made by unknown hands at some point in the past) may document items that no longer exist. I struck lucky with my searches for correspondence about the four Nelson Scots Song Books (1948-1954). Of course, I still don’t know if there was further correspondence between the song book editors (by which I mean the compilers), as well as that between the compilers and Nelson’s in-house editors. But I found enough to be interesting, and to document the general story of their coming to fruition. It is possibly significant that they were published post-war, by the educational department editors, who had all been in Edinburgh for years by now.
However, for the past few weeks, I’ve been looking for correspondence between the author of a 1935 (ie, pre-war) book aimed at the general reader, and Nelson’s in-house editors. There was correspondence as early as 1932 – I know that much, but I can’t find it. Not only have I completely failed to find it, but we’ve discovered at least half-a-dozen boxes are missing. I bet you anything the missing correspondence is (was) in one or more of those missing boxes! Now, Nelson had offices in Edinburgh and London. The editorial staff for educational materials seemed to have been based in Edinburgh before the Second World War, whilst some – but not all – of the other editorial staff joined them from London’s Pater Noster Row at the start of the war. Thus, my 1935 book – not a school textbook – may have been edited from the London office, not in Edinburgh. Hold onto that knowledge.
Missing in Enemy Action?
When the London offices were bombed, the remaining London editorial staff, including the juvenile literature department, were found temporary office accomodation with another publisher. If my missing correspondence was lost either during a move to Edinburgh, or during the London raids, or in the general upheaval that followed, then they will never be found.
Ironically, when I was researching in the British Museum for my Masters degree, there was a particular Augustinian plainsong manuscript that I desperately needed to see – I’d travelled from Exeter to see it. But I filled in the paper slip (this was 1980 – that’s how you did it) – and got the slip back, marked ‘Missing in Enemy Action’. I rather think I have come up against the same problem again!
And the handlist? The original copy could even have been made by Nelson’s own staff, maybe in Edinburgh, but incorporating letters that had come up from London.
There remain four ‘temporary boxes’ at the end of the sequence, which may contain my prey. And a handful of other boxes that I can’t look at until the next time I’m in Edinburgh. But I’m preparing myself to accept the almost inevitable. In this particular instance,
In the late 1920s, Thomas Nelson’s were just starting to work with the music specialist who would turn out to be very helpful to them over the next couple of decades. As I mentioned, I’ve been trying to find the very first letter that passed between them. Moreover, the Nelson’s editor had told his line-manager at the outset (in the mid-1920s) that he hoped this individual would be helping with ‘the large music book’. Now, this is delightfully vague, isn’t it? Nelson’s wouldn’t be publishing anything that I’d call ‘large’ in the way of printed music for several years.
And Another Music Man!
On Friday, I stumbled across editorial correspondence from 1929 about revising an earlierbook about music – one useful to individual students, possibly beyond school age – but not a school classroom text-book. When I get my hands on it, I expect to find that it’s a fairly standard Nelson printed book size. If this was ‘the large book’ (Possibility A), then it was only ‘large’ by comparison with slimmer materials intended for the classroom. Moreover, our music man was NOT the person who ended up revising it. His first contribution was something slimmer, and more classroom-based. But this book does perhaps better fit the timescale of a publication being projected in the late 20s.
It’s so easy to imagine up a sequence of events, with what is really insufficient evidence. After all, there could be another projected ‘large book’ (Possibility B) that never actually happened!
My working theory for Possibility A, is currently that even if they approached the first guy to revise a book, then for whatever reason, he wasn’t ultimately offered or didn’t fancy the commission. The chap who did do it was certainly a good choice, in any event – a knowledgeable scholar rather than a gifted practitioner and pedagogue.
There’s nothing for it – I must continue leafing through early correspondence in search of that initial letter! But I’ve also ordered a copy of the book that the scholar revised. After all, it’s another Nelson music publication. I need to know about it, too, whether it’s the ‘large’ book or otherwise.
Yesterday was my first day back in the archives. My phone was crawling with messages (an ongoing family situation). Then came a phone-call, which I couldn’t answer without running out to where I could talk. That led to another, and another. And another. Back and forth I went. I can’t tell you what a day it was!
However, I did get through several folders of Thomas Nelson papers. I’m in search of the first mention of a particular individual who was very influential in Nelson’s educational music output. I found him mentioned a couple of times in yesterday’s papers, once quite unexpectedly. I need to see how this sits in my timeline. Honestly, I didn’t expect to find him urging an organist’s wife to submit a book proposal on … elocution! It didn’t look like choral speaking (yes, that was a thing, which was quite in vogue a little later on). Indeed, a Nelson editor specifically advised his boss that it was about elocution, so I don’t need to wonder.
Nelson’s rejected the lady’s proposal. She found another publisher. I briefly wondered how the Englishman who basically ended up acting as music advisor to the Nelson editors, came to know a Scottish organist and his wife, quite early on in his professional career? But I think they probably met at a course or conference.
Folks, I’ve just noticed Routledge has a 20% summer sale on at the moment. So, if you or your library could use a copy, this might be a good time to get it! (All books and e-books are 20% off until 1 August 2025.)
The accent is on social history and Scotland – and music-making, obviously. I’m keen to hear what readers think of it. (If you are a reviews editor, do get in touch with Routledge. There’s a link on the website.)
Relax, dear reader – this is not an incursion into my working research existence. I haven’t broken my resolution to take a well-earned holiday. Well, not exactly!
Going through the Thomas Nelson correspondence a few weeks ago, I came across a post-war letter celebrating the fact that sugar rationing was finally over, in which one editor suggested to another that now would be a good time to reissue Helen Jerome’s sweet-making book.
Now for a bit of history! It had first been published in 1924. In 1931, the author proposed another book, this time about baking cakes. The publishers declined it, since they felt the sweet-making one hadn’t sold very well.
Notwithstanding these observations, they revised the sweet-making book in 1936, and reprinted it in June 1939 (still pre-war). This publisher very much had their finger on the pulse, and books for adults quite often tapped into contemporary issues. So, right now they guessed – probably accurately – that people would enjoy making confectionery again after the years of privation. I obtained a revised edition with a foreword dated Spring 1954:-
FOREWORD TO THE REVISED EDITION. The effect of sweet and sugar rationing appears only to have increased the amount of sweets eaten in Great Britain, establishing us as one of the largest sweet-eating countries in the world. There is now much added interest in the actual making of sweets at home – whether as a skilled hobby … a family venture for special occasions, or as an experiment embarked upon by teenagers …
I’ll be honest – I bought this book intending to make some confectionery which I could photograph and write about. Now I’m on holiday, I imagined myself lovingly creating something delicious to intrigue and delight the family. However, I’ve looked through at the required equipment, the fancy syrups, and high boiling temperatures, and I have taken fright. It’s not going to happen! The first three chapters are terrifying enough: Utensils Required for Sweet-making; Materials Required for Sweet-making and Hints on their Preparation; and Sugar Boiling, Sugar Syrups, Spun Sugar, and Crystallisation.
I have a stove. And a sugar thermometer (unused). I don’t have a slab, be it marble, slate or heavy wood (‘covered with a sheet of enamelled iron’) or a ‘heavy white enamelled tray known as a “butcher’s tray”‘. Nor do I have a nylon or hair sieve, candy bars (not the edible variety – these are ‘a set of four steel bars cut from 1/2 in. cube steel, and 12-18 in. long, which help to obtain and professional finish’ and ‘can be obtained from a builder’s merchant’.) I’m mystified by sweet rings or cream rings, a caramel marker, a sugar scraper, a candy hook or a starch tray … need I continue? There are three more pages of equipment requirements.
As you can see, getting set up could be quite expensive! Not only are some of the above items going to be hard to source, but I had a bit of a problem establishing what, precisely, a gill measurement is. My first Google search did not go well …
The AI answer wasn’t quite what I expected!
If at first you don’t succeed – try, try, try again:-
Ah, that’s more like it!
Anyway, let’s look at the ingredients:- Loaf sugar, granulated sugar, demerara sugar, castor sugar, icing sugar, Raw West Indian or ‘soft’ sugar. Treacle, honey, glucose, cream of tartar, butter … so far, so good. But don’t get complacent. After various nuts and dried fruit, we find we need plain cooking chocolate (yes) and covering chocolate (what?), cocoa butter, various flavourings, gum arabic, gelatine, confectioners’ starch. Maple sugar, maple syrup, molasses, marshmallow cream … and then we get on to various techniques that you use to transform these ingredients into other more complex substances.
After all this, there are ten chapters devoted to different kinds of sweets, followed by advice about packaging them.
Fondants
Marzipan (you make this from scratch – don’t imagine you can buy a packet from Sainsbury’s!)
Toffees
Caramels
Candies and Fudges
Nougats
Chocolates
Jelly Sweets and ‘Delights’
Unboiled Bon-Bons
Miscellaneous Recipes
Now I’m feeling hungry, and my mouth is watering, but I am not equipped to start my confectionery journey. Not only that, but my ceramic hob is my pride and joy (or a ridiculous obsession, to quote my nearest and dearest), and I live in fear of pots boiling over at the best of times. Can I risk spilling boiling syrup on it? I cannot.
I take my hat off to the author, with her First-Class Diplomas, London and Paris (Cordon Bleu), who was a former staff Teacher of Cookery at the Polytechnic, Regent Street, London W1. I envy the skilled hobbyists capable of mastering ‘difficult processes’ (see? she admits they’re hard!). And I’m in awe of ‘teenagers who want to make their own “tuck”‘. I can well imagine their collective excitement at being able to buy all these sweet ingredients to create the treats they had missed out on for so long, and I hope many tasty confections were made by the purchasers of this book.
Next time I’m passing a shop, I’ll get some Fry’s Turkish Delight, and be grateful that I can!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 