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.
So, 202 years ago today, William Motherwell received Smith’s letter with accompanying draft preface. He would attend to the Scotish Minstrel Preface, he assured Smith. But …
… it would take him a week to get over his Hogmanay celebrations.
However much had he celebrated? Too hungover to do the task, but capable of writing back immediately?
Musician Robert Archibald Smith edited six volumes of The Scotish Minstrel (yes, Scotish) between 1820-1824. It was a project coordinated by Lady Carolina Nairne and her committee of ladies.
On this day, 1 January 1824, Smith wrote to William Motherwell, who was supposed to be writing a preface for them. To speed things up, the ladies had written text that Motherwell was now asked to edit as he saw fit.
Motherwell did reply by return of post, but not with the edited preface. However, that’s a story for tomorrow!
Image of William Motherwell, from National Galleries of Scotland
If you’ve made any kind of study of Scottish songs and fiddle tunes, you’ll know that collector Andrew Wighton (1804-1866) bequeathed his fantastic music collection to the City of Dundee. As the Friends of Wighton website says, ‘Andrew J Wighton (1804-1866) was a merchant in Dundee. He built a music collection which is now of international renown and importance. After his death, his Trustees donated the music to the then Free Library in Dundee’. The Friends of Wighton is a charity which exists to promote the collection and the performance and study of Scottish music. I’m proud to be the honorary librarian.
On 31 December 1855, Wighton’s Aberdonian friend James Davie wrote to him observing that Wighton must, by now, have,
… the finest collection of old [Scottish] music in the three kingdoms.
You only have to look at the online catalogue today to see that Davie was perfectly accurate in his observation!
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.
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!’
170 years ago today, antiquarian ballad and song collector William Chappell sent an unintentionally incendiary letter to Andrew Wighton!
It is difficult to find really good tunes of this early date, because there is so little genuine Scotch music in print – although plenty of Anglo-Scottish.
Sparks flew in Dundee. How dare Mr Chappell suggest that much of Scotland’s song repertoire wasn’t really Scottish, but some kind of English-worked mishmash? Sparks also flew in Aberdeen, when Chappell’s song-collection was published, on account of his extensive annotations.
This is actually part of a larger story, which I explored in the final chapter of my first book, Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era. Chapter 8 is headed,
‘The Feelings of a Scotsman’ and the Illusion of Origins in the Later Nineteenth Century‘.
CAST LIST:-
If you’re interested in learning more, my book is available in quite a few libraries or in paperback, e-book or Kindle format. Chappell’s collection is also readily available.
It would be remiss of me not to point out that Routledge’s Black Friday sale makes the e-book version of my book very affordable! (Maybe someone might even buy you it for Christmas?).
Those preferring to read a hard copy might point out to their library that there’s no time like the present…
Its forerunner, Our Ancient National Airs, is also in the sale.
There! Your Christmas reading is sorted.
Once used in an Edinburgh school, a wee Scots song book (pupil’s edition) found its way to a shop on the Isle of Arran, then back to the mainland to me in Glasgow.
If you ever find any of these in the back of a school cupboard, or bookshop, or car boot sale, or Granny’s attic …
… please do let me know! I’m trying to get complete set! There were four books for the kids, and four for teachers.
I haven’t been posting much this summer, for personal reasons. So – after more than a week of total blog silence, imagine my surprise to find I have had hundreds and hundreds more visitors since yesterday. What’s happened?!
Even if it’s some kind of blip, it gives me the opportunity to introduce myself. I’m a postdoctoral research fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and also, for a few weeks more, at IASH at the University of Edinburgh. I research all sorts of cool stuff (well, it’s cool to me) about Scottish music publishers, with a distinct interest in national song collections, and in early 20th century music education in Scotland.
My second book was published at the end of 2024:-
That might look like a strange date-range, but my previous book covered Scottish song-collecting up to the 1880s, so this kind of continues in a slightly different way from that point onwards. The 1951 cut-off date is because that was the year of the Festival of Britain. And it was also a good place to stop because I touched upon magic lanterns, gramophones and the wireless, but I really didn’t feel I was the right person to write about early television in Scotland! By stopping in 1951, I conveniently sidestepped early television. There are plenty of people more knowledgeable than me on that front.
My current Edinburgh research entails examining archival records of the Thomas Nelson publishing house, an old Edinburgh firm. The British side of this company has ceased trading – it’s an American firm now – but I’ve found plenty to interest me in the documents up the early 1950s. Education became their focus during the era I’m researching. Whilst my book mostly covers publishers specialising in music, Thomas Nelson really only published music that would be used in schools – though they hoped a few titles would also attract the general public. (The problem being that if you mention ‘school’ or ‘classroom’ in a title, it will turn off the ordinary member of public looking at books in a bookshop!)
Will there be a third book? Possibly! I’m still pondering. September is earmarked for concentrated thought about that!
If this sounds interesting, please do come back and visit this site again.
It is the week of the bathroom renovation. There’s a team doing it, and all I have to do is basically keep out of the way. (Said she, glumly contemplating the inconveniences of having no – erm – plumbing for hours at a time.) It’s going to be fabulous, but the upheaval is quite something else. This morning, we have a singing electrician and two joiners. I am much distracted by the banging and crashing upstairs and down, and a table has appeared in the garden!
The electrician has just inspected the fusebox, and warned me that there might be some inappropriate language if certain switches and boxes don’t do what he needs them to do. Silence. He stops singing …
I look for ways to divert myself. Yesterday, I did some ironing (that’s always a sign of stress. I ironed before I got married; I ironed when I was in labour; and I iron when someone has rattled me!) I also wrote a report, which felt strangely grounding – and reached out to another professional with whom I have a point of common interest. Maybe not exactly holiday activities, but definitely worthwhile.
Strangely enough, tidying seems quite therapeutic. If much of the house is in chaos inside and out, then imposing order on a tiny corner – David versus Goliath – feels like taking back just a bit of control. Last week I put unwanted books on eBay and visited the charity shop, but I can always find more. I could do some gardening, but everything’s very wet out there after overnight rain, Maybe later!
I could sort paperwork and filing, but creating more mess and covering more surfaces may not be a good idea. I may be reduced to commencing a [small] sewing project, or perhaps starting knitting! Or …
An Album of WELL-LOVED SONGS From the Repertoire of Robert Wilson, ‘THE VOICE OF SCOTLAND’
My eye falls on the Robert Wilson song-book that has lain on the piano for a couple of weeks. That needs putting away – but not before I reflect that the publication has its own points of interest. I like the fact that this book, published by Ascherberg, Hopwood & Crew, predates when Wilson and his cronies bought James S Kerr’s publishing concern and began publishing jaunty, variety-influenced (‘tartan-tinted’) light song repertoire that not only suited his own voice, but met with affectionate approval with his many, many followers. The English firm’s publication contains an older selection of Scottish songs, which clearly marks an earlier stage in Wilson’s career:- ‘My ain Wee House’ (Hoose, surely?! But it’s an English publisher); ‘Hame o’ mine’; ‘Bonnie wee thing’; ‘The auld House’ (ahem. Hoose, please); ‘O sing to me the auld Scotch sangs’; ‘Yon wee bit heather’; ‘The Scottish Emigrant’s Farewell’, and more. It couldn’t be more different from his later repertoire.
Ah, I’ve just heard a triumphant ‘YES!’ from the bathroom. And no swearing. I’ll take that as a sign that the fusebox and switches did what they were meant to do. (Thank God!)
The electrician has started singing again, so all must be well! A quick burst of the burglar alarm – that’ll annoy the neighbours! – then fuses are put back, the alarm is reset and peace descends … for now.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 