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.
On 18 June 1946, Herbert Wiseman wrote to publisher Thomas Nelson’s editor suggesting a meeting about their proposed Scots Song Book series.
It took another two years before the first of four books rolled off the press.
I’ll be writing much more about this series later this year!
This isn’t really a scholarly post – just a reflection.
One of my informants remembers singing ‘Muirland Willie’ as their Silver Medal entry, and I was chuffed to find it in my Nelson’s Scots Song Book, Book 3 (‘words edition’). And yes, the ‘words edition’ does contain the melody line as well – just not the piano part.
The book had reached me third hand – or was it fourth? How many hands has it passed through since someone stamped ‘Rockwell Primary School, November 1952’ on the title page? This tells me it was bought by a Dundee school the year it was first published. It must have lived in a class collection for some years, at some point ending up in a private home, and finally being sold to a friend of a friend, who generously got it on my behalf.
It’s a little bit battered, so it obviously got well-used. One page bears a carefully drawn treble clef – pretty accurate but not yet fluent – someone had been learning how to write music, evidently! Meanwhile, the back inside cover has a scrawled ‘THE END’! Was there a sigh of relief, or was it just an irresistibly blank page demanding to be scrawled on?
I wonder how many Leng medal competitors used this copy? If books could talk, this one would surely recall feelings not only of excitement, enjoyment and pride, but also occasionally fear, nerves and perhaps embarrassment – all emotions that my interviewees have shared with me.
It would remember teachers who are still remembered half a century later; not to mention head teachers and deputy heads whose own musicality ensured that they gave music its proper place in the schools that they led.
The principal teacher of music at that time […] was a redoubtable lady and she made sure everybody knew everything …1
But I’d better put my little book away and get back to my interview transcriptions now!
At some point, I’ll be making a list of the songs that juvenile Leng Scots Song Medal competitors recall singing as their competition entries. It’ll be interesting to compare them against the lists I’ve compiled in connection with a number of Scottish song books. Some kids (a few) chose a song that was entirely their own selection. Most seem to have been offered and taught a short selection of songs, from which they then made their choice.
What goes into a published song book like the four Nelson’s Scots Song Books, though? It was a combination of the compilers’ choice and, occasionally, printer’s practicality.
On this day, 4 June 1953, the then editor of the fourth song book had received the initial proofs from Aird and Coghill the printer, and wrote to James Easson (the Dundonian Music Supervisor collaborating with Herbert Wiseman), to say that they needed two more songs to fill five more pages. Pure practicality! Moreover, the editor was leaving for a new job soon, and was keen to get the publication as far advanced as possible before they left.
Reading the correspondence, it looks as though, in response, Easson supplied ‘Ae fond kiss’ (which ended up occupying three pages) and ‘Maggie Lauder’.
Job done? No. The printers said that ‘Maggie Lauder’ had been supplied incomplete. Moreover, another song, ‘As I came over the Cairney Mount’ was too short. Neither ‘Maggie’ nor ‘Cairney Mount’ appeared in the finished publication. It looks as though an abbreviated ‘I wish I were where Helen Lies’ (occupying one page) was supplied instead. (Three and one do not equal five, but it’s of no consequence now!) But it all goes to show how much to-ing and fro-ing took place before a book is published in its final form.
And has either song even been used as a medallist’s performed entry? I don’t know. I haven’t interviewed that many people! But I’ll be going through my transcripts, so who knows?
Thanks to the kindness of a friend of a friend, I received books 3 and 4 of the Nelson’s Scots Song Book through the post today. Well, what else could I do but take a photo of them?! I’ve longed for ages to have the complete set, and now I do.
I have already learned something new. The first two books had little black-and-white line drawings wherever there was a blank bit of page, and apparently the pupils loved these. And then …
I think there was a bit of cost-cutting going on! But I don’t recall any correspondence with the editors James Easson and Herbert Wiseman to advise them of this. I’ll need to go back through my notes!
If you’ve found a link to my brief questionnaire on Facebook, and wondered who I am and what I’m up to, then maybe I should introduce myself properly?
So … McAulay is my name, but as soon as you speak to me, you’ll realise I’m not Scottish. I’m the only member of our household that isn’t! However, I’ve lived in Glasgow since 1988 – more than half my life.
I do have a connection with Dundee through the Friends of Wighton – I’m Honorary Librarian of the Friends of Wighton, who promote the Wighton Collection in the Central Library. It’s a very old, historical collection of Scottish music publications, and I’m just available in an advisory capacity – I’m not in any way employed by the city of Dundee. I do enjoy this connection with Dundee, though. I have often consulted the old music books since before I even started my PhD, so I appreciate their significance. I’ve written about them, and about Andrew Wighton, who was their original collector.
Since I started my career in a public library – in South Shields on Tyneside, as a music librarian – I rather like having this loosely continued connection with public libraries, too.
I do have another link with Dundee, through my writing. I’ve written both fiction and non-fiction, and the fiction was for D. C. Thomson’s The People’s Friend, during my earlier years in Glasgow. But since getting started on my research, I’ve only really written about music and social history (and occasionally, libraries!).
I’m a research fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow. For most of my career, I was a music librarian at the Conservatoire, but I did a mid-career doctorate at the University of Glasgow, and a few years after getting my PhD, I started being seconded to the Conservatoire’s research department – basically, I split my time between the library and a research desk elsewhere.
Nowadays, I’m just doing the research part of my role – I retired from the library.
My research has always been into Scottish printed music of one kind or another – songs, fiddle music, old music in libraries, publishers who published Scottish music or Scottish publishers who published music.
My most recent research has been into Thomas Nelson’s, the Edinburgh publishers. They published a set of four Scots Song books for school use, and one of the editors was in charge of music in Dundee schools – so not surprisingly, these books were used a fair bit! Anyway, that’s how I got interested in the Leng Scots Song prizes. I’m keen to know what competitors remember of their experiences, and if they continued singing Scottish songs later in life.
I’ve had a great response so far. I’ll start having chats with people soon. But if you would still like to get in touch, it’s not too late. Please just visit this link!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!)
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?
I can say this very succinctly!
That which you seek may not be there.
Indeed,
That which you seek may not exist.
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.
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,
That for which I search may not exist at all.
Imperial War Museum image (copyright © The Family Estate (Art.IWM ART 16123) – I can only share the link).
Anyone who has spent any length of time on archival research will agree with me that there are days when nothing of interest really turns up! This week has been a case in point.
On the positive side (and this relates to research time beyond the archives), I used to have ONE spreadsheet listing all the significant names – and relevant dates – of the individuals I’ve encountered over the past year or so, be they Thomas Nelson editors, authors, or connected in some other capacity. I now have a second spreadsheet, charting the weird and wonderful departmental codes appearing on letters and memos to/from the Parkside (Edinburgh) and Pater Noster Row (London) offices; I’ve again listed names associated with those offices. This is likely to be of interest to me, but little interest to anyone else. Still, there’s a quiet satisfaction in having clarified who did what, where and when. Whilst I was working on that, I discovered that one of the earlier editors had previously been an HMI before joining Nelson’s. That was a gratifying discovery, even if he had been a geographer, and had nothing to do with publishing music education materials.
I’ve also continued reading a book about an individual who published a book with Nelson’s in 1935; I’ve borrowed another; and recommended a useful e-book to my home institution library. It hasn’t been a wasted week.
But, glancing through my archival notes and social media postings, there weren’t any significant discoveries. I had a long list of boxes to trawl, in my hunt for interesting correspondence with one particular author, but on Tuesday I realised I’d already seen all that was worth seeing in two boxes, whilst the third box contained ‘the editor regrets’ letters to would-be authors. (A whole boxful of dashed hopes for dozens of would-be authors, ninety-odd years before my own disappointment in an unproductive, rainy day.)
Back I went to Edinburgh yesterday, eagerly anticipating fresh discoveries. Did I find the sought-after correspondence? No. There was plenty to amuse, but I can’t say I learned anything more about music education publishing. For example, my curiosity was piqued by a book proposal for a collection of prayers. The editor wrote to a colleague that he didn’t think they wanted any prayers, but he would decide finally when he saw how the would-be author had prayed. I wish I knew what he decided!
I shook my head sorrowfully at the rather naive author who wrote to Nelson’s asking if they published a particular genre of material. I suppose in the 1930s, it was less easy to find out, but could they not have gone into a library or bookshop and ASKED? Again, there was no copy of a response.
Another book proposal that presumably foundered, was the one unappealingly entitled, ‘The Unamiable Child’. I don’t think they offered the author a contract. (More recently, wasn’t the Horrid Henry series so beloved by children and their parents, about precisely such a child? Maybe the earlier hopeful author was just ahead of their time.)
I did, however, come across some correspondence which might be of interest to a historian of domestic science education. It appears to be a long time since anyone seems to have published anything about one of QMU’s earlier forerunners, the Edinburgh College of Domestic Science. (Tom Begg wrote a book, The Excellent Women: The Origins and History of Queen Margaret College, in 1994.) But if you know anyone currently researching it, then I can advise them that 1933 saw a run of correspondence with Thomas Nelson about a book they were producing. I can let them know which folder to consult, if they’d like to follow this up!
As I approached the end of my second day in the archives, one final memo made me smile. (Again, this had absolutely nothing to do with music – I was just dutifully flicking through pages to ensure I hadn’t missed anything.) A memo was sent to three of Thomas Nelson’s Edinburgh managers in July 1956. They were warned that they might have to entertain a couple of visitors from Melbourne whilst their colleague was away. There were a couple of points that they needed to be aware of. I didn’t read past the first of these!
‘It might be wise to point out that Mr C is a teetotaller’.
Let’s hope they remembered. Reading between the lines, ‘hospitality’ was clearly not always a cup of tea and a scone!
Image by Dayoung Seo from Pixabay
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 