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.
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:-
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. (Any questions of still copyright works are another matter entirely. There has been no new music.)
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.)
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:-
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!)
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.
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.
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.
At home, I wonder if I’m perceived as somewhat perverse and illogical. Why would I want to go out early to examine archival records on a ‘Not Working’ day? (Contractually, Tuesday isn’t a day when I work.)
Should I need to justify myself? Arguably not. However, if retirement offers the opportunity to pursue interests, then surely one should pursue them most vigorously whilst one still has vigour? I’m sure scientists would say this was even good for one’s mental health.
If someone was interested in trains, no-one would think it odd if they wanted to find out where a loco was, at different points in time, and where it went – the track layout and the timetables. It follows, then, that real people, especially in your own city, and with a connection to your own institution, are every bit as interesting and worth researching. She was an organist, composer and music teacher.
[Incredulously] How many books? How many hours? Really?
So … I know a lot about the trumpet major’s youngest daughter, but if I find a new avenue to research, then naturally, I want to explore it. And this has been a most interesting and fruitful day, combing through half a dozen large and bulky old handwritten church minutes books. I now know when the lady in question began her quarter century of service as a church organist, and when she resigned. I’ve seen her resignation copied into the records. (But it’s unclear precisely why. She gave a slightly vague explanation. Ah, well.)
There’s plenty more in my notes that I shall mull over. Just time for a quick coffee before I examine one last document …
To recap – I have done oral history interviews with a number of people who participated in Dundee’s Leng Medal competitions for Scots song singing – mostly as children, but a few teachers have also talked with me. I’ve checked the transcriptions of 25 out of the total 27 interviews, and I also have a few emailed responses too. If you’re one of the people I’ve interviewed or emailed, then can I offer a big thank you, right now, because I now have lots and lots of information and memories. I really am very grateful. I couldn’t have done this without you. You’ve shared your memories, you’ve made me smile, and some of you have even sung to me. Who could ask for more generosity of spirit than that?
So, what’s next?
Writing. (Writing for the popular, non-academic press, and then writing a book chapter.)
An event, hopefully. Still under discussion.
A book about Thomas Nelson’s educational music publishing, or something along those lines.
And I have more than one string to my bow. I’m also still researching …
The Trumpet Major’s Youngest Daughter
Slightly crumpled conference bag (it has already endured both London and Scottish rain!)
After my talk at the recent Royal Academy of Music conference, Women and Musical Histories, 1789-1914, I have continued researching Rose Smith’s life. I’ve already found out more, and tomorrow I’m off to consult an archive where I hope some of my still outstanding questions might be answered. I foresee a [second, more focused] research trip to Rose’s birthplace in the near future, before our Scottish days get short and wintry!
I’d also like to organise another event! But I really must focus on getting the Dundee research written up and celebrated before I get consumed by this other research thread.
It’s a good thing I’m semi-retired, really! If I was still cataloguing jazz CDs in the library, I certainly wouldn’t have time to plan research expeditions without taking annual leave.
Here we are in 2026 and women composers still don’t get their share of concert performances. Neither do those from the global majority. I’d appreciate it if, after reading this post, you could please share it as widely as possible. Thank you!
When I received an invitation to the launch of the Equality and Diversity in Global Repertoire 2025/26 report – at the Royal Albert Hall, no less – I hesitated for only a few seconds – it’s not exactly just down the road! And the trouble with the overnight sleeper (apart from the insomnia) is that you get there far too early…
An early (overnight) start!Solo Coffee to start the Day
But, as I outlined in my last post,
If an opportunity presents itself, and you find yourself hesitating, ask yourself this one question:- If I pass this up, am I likely to regret it later? That, rather than other people’s opinions, should be your deciding factor.
Karen McAulay Musicologist blog, 22 Sept 2026
You have to be ‘in the room’ to be part of the change you want to see effected. So, since I had been invited, there I was.
Gabriella Di Laccio addresses the invited audience
I considered it an honour to attend the launch of the latest report of orchestral performances, comparing ratios of music by men and women, broken down further into music by living and deceased, white and global majority composers. The previous report had actually shown a slight downturn in the figures for women and global minorities, but things were marginally on the up again this year. However, Donne are impatient to see much bigger changes, and much of the talk not only by panellists but also invitees, was about how to quicken the pace.
It depends on so many things – boldness in programming. Funders. It’s not that the will isn’t there, amongst performers – artistic directors also need to be ready to make the changes. Not just having a ‘token’ woman’s piece on a programme. Capturing the interest of the audience. And recognising that it’s not enough just to premiere a new piece – because often we need to hear something more than once before we feel it’s something we like and would like to hear more of.
A distinguished panel had been convened, drawn from PRS Foundation; Black Lives in Music; the Musicians’ Union; one of the Oxford Colleges; and the Association of British Orchestras.
Equality and Diversity in Global Repertoire: 110 Orchestras Worldwide, Orchestras Season 2025-2026 / Donne, 2026.
The 2025/2026 Report.
You can find the report via the Donne – Women in Music Facebook page. It’s also worthwhile signing up to receive news from Donne (it’s the Italian for ‘women’, so you pronounce it ‘Don-ne‘) – I’ve just received the link to the latest report and highlights from the analysis.
Donne Founder, Gabriella Di Laccio, MBE.
And you’ll also learn about the latest very ambitious initiative, ’50 by 2030′. Donne founder Gabriella Di Laccio, MBE, is impatient to see a 50:50 balance of music by women and men by 2030. The current 8% ‘is not enough’, she says.
(50 by 2030 flyer)
Put that way, who could argue?!
From the floor, we were encouraged to share our own insights. I hung back, but eventually couldn’t contain myself, and shared my opinion that if we wanted children to know about women’s music, and not just canonical (mostly deceased) white men’s compositions, then most crucially, we needed to target student teachers. If teachers aren’t sufficiently well-informed about women’s compositions, then the next generation will continue to miss out on what women have created.
I also mentioned my efforts to get as much music by women composers as possible into the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland particularly in my last five years as a librarian there. (I got applause! There you are – my reward for speaking up.)
After the formal discussions, there was time to network before we all went our separate ways. I caught up with an acquaintance and met lots more.
And managed coffee with our London-based offspring before heading back home. A great day out!
Biddy, the Maid of All Work is the title of a children’s book, dating from as early as 1871 in its original version. My own copy is an attractive bound compilation of three stories in a gift book from the turn of the century – it was given to its original owner as a Sunday School prize, and I bought it when I was researching Bayley & Ferguson’s ‘service of song’ books for magic lantern shows. As I have shared before, it’s a very moralistic Christian tale. (I’ll show you the opening paragraphs later on in this post.)
Women and Domestic Labour
But why have I gone back to services of song? As a matter of fact, that wasn’t why I thought of Biddy. Yesterday, I was thinking about women and domestic labour, and pondering over not only what had changed, but also what seems to have stayed the same. When I was working full-time, we employed a cleaner for two hours a week – we’d done so for three decades, and it certainly lessened the load. We don’t now – partly because the agency was struggling to find cleaners, and partly because I don’t feel it’s justified. But somehow, although we used to share the cleaning bill, I alone have ended up with everything connected with running the house, from mending to muffins, and dusting to drain-unblocking. (I’m told I don’t actually ‘do’ the washing, because the modern home has white goods that do everything for me. All I can say is that the washer-dryer hasn’t yet learned how to gather up the laundry, sort it, hang it, iron it and put everything away again.)
Little chimney with no pot: relic from the wash-boiler days
Our house is contemporary with the lives of ‘my’ musical Scotswomen. It was built in 1904. It was occupied by the proprietor (a shipbuilding clerk), his wife and three daughters. It still has a wee chimney leading from where the scullery boiler would have been, on the ground floor. It’s now our kitchen – but it would have been the wash-house: a place of really hard work. We still have a ‘pulley’ in what would have then have been the kitchen, and my office is what would have been the bed recess, under the stairs. Was there a servant sleeping in it? Well, there wasn’t, in the 1911 census. The range was where our dresser is. The kitchen sink? There’s now another bookcase. But the meal-preparation continues, in what was the wash-house. (A Cordon-Bleu cook would find it nightmarishly cramped!)
Anyway, I’m suitably grateful that there’s less ironing, with a much nicer iron than the first occupants would have had! I visualise scrubbed and starched cotton shirts and white frilled pinafores hanging from the pulley, where tee-shirts and jeans are now casually draped, and I do appreciate the advances in both textiles and technology!
The life of a servant like Biddy was certainly a hard one. The author asks us to have sympathy for her, not only for the hard work, but also for her feelings of being uncared-about. Now then, bear in mind that it’s a piece of fiction for children. It’s impossible to know how accurate the picture conveyed actually is. There must have been good and caring employers, and ‘Biddy’s’ employer isn’t portrayed as bad. But it was a different age. The history of domestic labour is not my area of research expertise!
Much more could be said about domestic labour, particularly about the present occupants’ expectations and recollections of childhood and early adulthood which, I can assure you, were quite a long time ago. A different era, made more complicated by the fact that there are also two sets of memories, since our childhoods weren’t simultaneous! And I’ve heard it said that as we age, our most vivid memories are of our early adulthood, when everything was new and exciting. This book (on eBay) is from the ‘sixties: my childhood, not early adulthood. But it is, sadly, from an era when the ‘young wife’ did everything domestically-related. I feel as though I’m dragged back through a time-warp into those dizzy days six decades ago.
The Time of Vivid Memories? (The Young Wife’s Cookery Book, ed. E. Maxwell-Arnot (1967)
Rose and Iden’s Live-in Servant
Anyway, my mind again turned to Rose Smith, the late Victorian/Edwardian church organist who didn’t let three children curtail her musical activities. How much help did she have around the house? So, let’s recap. Rose was born in 1870 in Lanark, and brought up by her widowed mother, mainly in Glasgow. They didn’t have a servant in the 1891 census – indeed, her mother had two lodgers as well as Rose and her older sister to look after.
Rose married in 1898. I knew that Iden and Rose Rigden’s first son was born in June 1899, so at the time of the 1901 census, there were Iden, a tax official; Rose, a teacher and church organist working from home on her ‘own account’ (ie, she was self-employed) and Iden junior, aged nearly two. Iden’s wee brother wouldn’t come along until August 1903. Although it was a small household, there was also a live-in servant, the 17-year old Bella Johnston[e], who was born in Port Logan in Wigtonshire around 1884.
I don’t know exactly how long Johnston stayed with the Rigdens. They had their second son in 1903 and a daughter in 1907, and had moved house by 1911 – where there was no live-in servant. Of course, we don’t know if Rose perhaps had a daily, non-resident maid to help her. We do tend to assume that domestic service became a less common occupation after the Great War, yet here we find the Rigdens without a resident maid, three years before the War. Selina Todd, author of an excellent article on domestic service in the first half of the century, would be unsurprised by this, however, as she demonstrates how, although practices changed, domestic service did continue. Just in a different form:-
The ‘disappearance’ of service — already heralded in the 1920s, when press coverage of ‘the servant problem’ was filled with nostalgic laments for the faithful Victorian maid — never happened. Change, of course, did occur — the live-in housemaid of the 1900s was replaced with the part-time cleaner of the 1950s […]
(Todd, see reference below)
Meanwhile, Bella Johnston herself was still a live-in domestic servant in 1911, working back in Wigtonshire in Kirkmaiden (where her grandmother had lived), for the Cook family in Weston House, Church Street. She married a Kirkmaiden fisherman in 1915.
By 1921, the Rigdons had moved up in the world – from a flat, to a house – but there was still no maid in the census.
It set me wondering. What about the other women musicians whom I’ve researched? In all honesty, I don’t think the Census data is enough on which to base any conclusions, simply because we don’t know about the domestic servants who didn’t live in – often called, ‘charladies’. The term sounds derogatory now, but may not have been considered so at the time. If anything can be deduced from a rainy Friday morning’s searching, it is that having a resident servant seems, in the early 20th century, to have depended on the level of affluence and/or evident need for help.
One thing is certain: the newspapers were full of adverts for Situations Vacant, and from job-seekers.
British Newspaper Archive
Clarinda Augusta Webster (1844-1920), was a music educationalist, and school proprietor in Aberdeen before she moved down to London. No census entry has been traced for 1901. In 1911 in Streatham, Webster employed 31-year old general servant Julia Fullick, who must have been either married or widowed at the time, because her name was the same in 1921, and she was then described as a widow, living with her sister and brother-in-law. Fullick’s occupation was now, ‘charwoman’. Webster had died in 1920; I don’t know if Fullick worked for Webster right up to when she died.
Mary Kerr (ca.1848-1908), was the wife of Glasgow music publisher James S. Kerr, and inheritor of the publishing firm. The couple had a servant whilst their family were young. Widowed and living in Saltcoats in 1901, Mary still had a ‘general servant domestic’, 21-year old Sarah Reid. By this time she had two adult children, two teenagers and a mother of 82 living with her, so I imagine Kerr and Reid would both have been kept busy! Kerr and her mother later moved back to Glasgow with at least one of the adult children – but I don’t know how much paid help they had latterly. (Mary’s mother actually outlived her by three months, living to the grand old age of 90.)
Euphemia Allan (1861-1948) was the sister of Glasgow music publisher Mozart Allan; she was a music teacher and also involved in the family firm. There’s no record of a resident servant either in Mozart Allan’s home in 1901 or 1911, or when Euphemia and her nephew (also Mozart Allan) lived there in 1921. I wonder whether Euphemia and her nephew had a charwoman – surely they must have done?!
Kate Logan (1862-1936) grew up in Inverness, where her parents had a servant and three lodgers by 1881, when Kate was the last of their offspring still at home, working as a music teacher. By 1901, her husband David was working as a music seller and employer, whilst Kate was certainly working as a pianist, although there’s no job designated against her name in the census. There was no live-in servant at that point, but after her husband’s family firm went bankrupt, Kate opened her Pianoforte and Music Saloon in 1904. Thus, by 1911 they were both designated as music sellers – and were employing 17-year old Daisy Shaw as their live-in servant. However, by 1921, the census listed no servant.
Flora Woodman (1896-1981) was a famous coloratura soprano, born in London to a mother with ‘private means’. Her mother grew up in Glasgow; in 1891 there had been two servants to look after a widow and three adult children. It comes as no surprise to learn that Flora’s own single mother had a servant, 18-year old Annie F. Butler, in the 1901 census; 22-year old Emily Owen in the 1911 census; and 34-year old Louie Hurst in 1921.
As a musicologist, I haven’t had to think about domestic service in the context of social history, but as a working mother myself, obviously I can draw on my own lived experience of running a household. I’m still left feeling distinctly impressed with Rose Smith Rigden, who performed the same juggling act of balancing a career with raising a family, when the physical work was unarguably harder. Meanwhile, I also take pleasure in the fact that I’ve memorialised the names of a number of female servants who have probably never before been mentioned in print!
NAME
BIOGRAPHY
Bella [Isabella] Johnstone [Johnston].
Born ca.1884, Wigtonshire. Worked for the Rigdens aged 17 in 1901. Aged 27, a live-in servant in Kirkmaiden in 1911. Married a fisherman in Kirkmaiden, Wigtonshire, in 1915.
Julia Mullins.
Born ca.1880. Aged 21, a servant in Bexley in 1901. Aged 31, now Julia Fullick working for Clarinda Webster, in 1911. A widowed charlady living with her sister and brother-in-law in 1921.
Sarah Reid.
Born ca.1880. Aged 21 in 1901, working for Mary Kerr.
Daisy [Margaret?] Shaw.
Born ca.1894. Aged 17 in 1911, working for the Logans.
Annie F. Butler.
Born ca.1883. Aged 18 in 1901, working for Jane [Janie] Sillars.
Emily Owen.
Born ca. 1889. Aged 22 in 1911, working for the Woodmans
Louie Hurst.
Born ca. 1887. Aged 34 in 1921, working for the Woodmans.
If you’re interested in the broader subject, Selina Todd’s article, is informative:- ‘Domestic Service and Class Relations in Britain 1900–1950’, in Past & Present, Volume 203, Issue 1, May 2009, Pages 181–204, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtp014.
Biddy, Tibby and French Bessie, by S. C. P. (Edinburgh and London: Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier). I initially thought this was published in 1900, but I think it was mentioned in the press in 1897 – whether or not it was an identical edition. It also seems to have appeared as three individual titles in 1871. The anonymous S. C. P. also wrote other titles in the publisher’s ‘Sixpenny Books for Young People’ series.
Here’s a taster of Biddy:- the opening of Chapter 1.
Biddy worked hard, and got few thanks for it, – poor Biddy! She was maid-of-all work in a large family; and it was, “Biddy, do this,” and “Biddy, do that,” from the time she got up in the morning, till she tumbled into her hard bed at night. She had come to Glasgow from Ireland a warm-hearted, impulsive girl; but had been gradually going through a hardening process, till she was practically saying in her heart, “I care for nobody, for nobody cares for me.” Mrs Pettigrew, her present mistress, was just and faithful in all her dealings with her, and valued Biddy highly as an active, honest, efficient servant; but she was “only a servant” to her, and any other girl who worked as well could have supplied her place; and she never dreamt of the large fund of love lying unkindled at the bottom of that servant’s heart, which a little kindness and sympathy on her part would have touched like a spark amongst gunpowder, and brought forth blazing into loving action.
Mistresses lose much who have no sympathy with their servants. How many hearts are saddened and steeled for want of it, even as Biddy’s was!
Why do I persist in researching Rose Smith? I suspect my interest is partly because I see myself in her.
Smith attended, and briefly taught at the Athenaeum. Throughout her life, she played, accompanied, composed and taught. I half-wondered if she gave up playing the organ when the family came along, but no! There she was in 1900, and in 1911, still playing.
Did she leave the baby at home with the maid? There wouldn’t have been a creche! And what about when there were three small children? (They were born ca. 1899, 1903 and 1907.) That’s something I probably don’t need to know.
But when you consider that my own mother told me I’d have to stop playing when the baby arrived (that was in 1993 – and I didn’t stop! Don’t tell me what I can’t do), then for Rose Smith to keep playing in 1899 seems quite unconventional. Or maybe not – I haven’t researched any other Edwardian organists who were mothers.
I’ve temporarily lost track of her organ playing after 1911. And did they move to a closer Episcopal church when they moved house? (I know where to look, but access isn’t easy. Give me time!)
But I do know she was still listed as a piano teacher at the age of 67.
I’ll just keep digging away. I find out a little bit more every time I start looking. Why, only this afternoon I discovered her younger son was a music salesman for Paterson’s in Glasgow, and must have known J. Michael Diack. Another little link with what I already know of Glasgow’s music scene …
Image shows the tenement near Glasgow Green, where Smith grew up.
