James S. Kerr, Victorian: the Subsequent History of his Music Business

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
St Andrews Citizen Saturday 9 August 1980, newsclip about the Glasgow Music Centre.

News item from St Andrews Citizen (9 August 1980)

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:-

Renzo Cordina, Rosa Michaelson & David Power (08 Jun 2026): ‘Pianos, profit and provinciality: a microhistory of a Victorian entrepreneurial firm‘, Management & Organizational History.

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.
  • 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.)
  • Article, ‘Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late 19th- and Early 20th-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles‘, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle , Volume 56, April 2025, pp. 97 – 118

Noted! More Scholars have Written about James S. Kerr’s Music Business

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Piano tuner at work

If you were interested in James and Mary Kerr, proprietors of James S. Kerr’s piano and music publishing concern, then you’re spoilt for choice today.

Amateur Music-Making

Not only do they feature in my book (now two years old), A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity: Scotland’s Printed Music, 1880-1951 … (where you’ll also find out more about dance instructor and dance hall lessee Mr Orr Robertson, not to mention the later history of Kerr’s firm, including the years when it was no longer owned by the Kerr’s!) …

Scottish Women Musicians

But Mary also gets her own significant mention in my RMA Research Chronicle open access article, ‘Women Pursuing Musical Careers: Finding Opportunities in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Scottish Music Publishing Circles’ … along with Kate Logan, whose connection with the Logan publishing firm diverged after her brother-in-law and husband’s publishing firm went bankrupt; not to mention Euphemia Allan (of Mozart Allan fame) and Rose Smith.

Scottish Professional Artistes

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:-

Renzo Cordina, Rosa Michaelson & David Power (08 Jun 2026): ‘Pianos, profit and provinciality: a microhistory of a Victorian entrepreneurial firm‘, Management & Organizational History.

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!)

Image by stalkerreklats from Pixabay

Now published in History Scotland, Spring 2025: The ‘Scottish Soprano’ and the ‘Voice of Scotland’

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
The Scottish Clans Association of London badge, on background of Mackinnon tartan

Sadly, this is the last issue of History Scotland, but I’m very pleased to have an article published there. I have really enjoyed writing this, and I think my idea of comparing two very different Scottish singers has actually come together rather well.  I wanted to write about Robert Wilson, but I didn’t want to go over the same ground that has already been covered.  I also wanted to write about Flora Woodman – but would anyone remember her? Then came the inspiration: what if I wrote about them both, two almost contemporary but very different celebrities, and then I could compare them.  This hadn’t been done before! And it worked  – the piece almost wrote itself.

Karen E McAulay, ‘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

If your public library has e-magazines, you’ll be able to read it online. Glasgow Life certainly has it!

Flora Woodman – photo and compliments, 25th October 1924

A Thought-Provoking History Scotland Webinar

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Leisure and Pleasure – Everyday life in Second World War Scotland

I don’t often sign up to webinars, but something so closely aligned to my own current research was irresistible.

The History Scotland webinar series is promoted by the History Department at the University of Dundee. The guest speaker today was Dr Michelle Moffat of Manchester Metropolitan University.

And what did I learn? Leisure pursuits didn’t stop in wartime, especially going to the cinema.  This is worth knowing.  (However,  I must be careful not to assume things were exactly the same everywhere.  It makes me wonder about central London, for example, where people might have felt more threatened. )

There was also interesting detail about rationing and food shortages, and discussion about how much people in Scotland felt the war was ‘their’ war. (I suspect anyone who had relatives fighting overseas would  very much have felt indirectly part of it.)

And a reminder about the Mass Observation Archive.  I had forgotten about this, but it’s a crucial resource – I’m going to check it out with some questions that I hope it might help with!