Saturday Outing to Maryhill Burgh Halls

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Why This Matters

This is all about networking – and expanding one’s knowledge beyond the immediate focus of research, in order to understand the context in which the topic stands.

Yesterday, I headed north of the river, because there was a community event being held by Maryhill Burgh Halls Trust, and a group I’ve recently started following was manning a stall there – the Protests and Suffragettes social enterprise.

A creative project & new social enterprise led by a team of artists, activists, & local historians working to recover and re-voice the histories of women activists in Scotland.

My takeaways from the stall!

My interest stems from the work I’ve done researching late Victorian and early twentieth century Glasgow women involved in teaching, performing or publishing music. I’ve already published an extensive article in the RMA Research Chronicle, and I’m giving a conference paper later this year. I’d like to find out if two of ‘my’ ladies were actively involved in the early suffrage movement. My guess is that they may have been sympathisers, if not active in the cause. The older lady lived before the Suffragette movement as such, and I’m not expecting to find the younger of the two doing anything particularly audacious,  but it would be nice to find any trace of supporting the cause,  even just as a member of some organised group!  (I’ve already mentioned my trip to Glasgow Women’s Library on a similar mission a couple of weeks ago.)

Anyway, I thought it would be altogether lovely if I introduced myself today, since we’ve already been in touch via social media. And it was lovely. I took the opportunity to outline what else I’m hoping to find out about this particular mother and daughter.

Caught chatting

Elevator Pitches

You’re always reading on LinkedIn about how you should have an elevator pitch just there on the tip of your tongue, so that your current project can be readily described to questioners who may not know very much about your work yet. As I travelled home, energised, after my outing, I reflected that actually, I need several elevator pitches, because I have two side projects as well as the main one!

Glasgow Women’s Careers in Music

One of my side projects, I’m currently exploring how different women’s backgrounds may have influenced the careers they pursued, in turn-of-the-century Glasgow.

The Glasgow Athenaeum School of Music

I’ve been exploring the careers of our first Principals, and contemplating the musical education that the institution offered in the first few decades. Another side project.

Publisher Thomas Nelson & Sons

This is the big project. I’ve been looking at the kind of educational music materials published in the first half of the twentieth century, and reflecting on the use made of Nelson’s four Scots song books by pupils and teachers. After archival work on the Nelson correspondence, I’m now conducting an oral history of the Sir John Leng Trust’s Scots Song medal competitions in Dundee. The idea is that I’ll use all this for a third book. Watch this space!

Clergyman’s Wife writes Humorous Musical Sketch? (Votes for Women!)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Music cover. Fashionable lady, and man holding a baby

I don’t go on shopping sprees. But let me loose on eBay, and who knows what I’ll buy? I came across a Bayley & Ferguson publication from ca.1894-6. It was published both in Glasgow and in London, and was performed in Bishopbriggs on the outskirts of Glasgow in January 1897. The London address confirms the earliest date. (John A. Parkinson’s Victorian Music Publishers: an Annotated List is invaluable here.*) The cover illustration caught my eye, and I must confess I was intrigued to find it was composed by a woman: Constance M. Yorke. In 1897-8, she also published Twilight Shadows with a London publisher, Larway, who again dealt with light musical fare. I haven’t attempted to get my hands on that one.

Constance M. Yorke: is this Constance Maria Yorke Smith / Scholefield?

I traced a Constance Maria Yorke Smith (1855-1936), who was a vicar’s daughter, originally from Loddon in Norfolk, but whose early adult years were spent in Penally, Pembrokeshire. Her late father was the Revd. J. J. Smith, latterly a tutor at the University of Cambridge. Constance in turn married a clergyman herself – James Henry Scholefield – in a very ‘society’ wedding in Cornwall in 1891. If I’m right, then this ‘humorous musical sketch‘ under her forenames but not her surname, could have been written when she was already married. (Her mother had given the happy couple a grand piano as a wedding gift – Constance would have been making good use of it!)

Rose Smith’s Mother, Mary Ann

This paragraph is newly added (March 2026). In the RMA Research Chronicle, you’ll find my recent article about five Scotswomen involved in and around music publishing in the late Victorian era and early twentieth century. The author of the musical sketch, M. A. Smith, was the mother of composer and self-publisher, Rose Smith. And whilst I can’t be 100% sure of the identity of Constance M. Yorke, I am 101% sure that M. A. Smith was Rose’s mother, and the author of Mr and Mrs Dobbs at Home. I’m still working on this, notwithstanding the fact that my article is now published, because I feel there’s more to be said about M. A. Smith. I’m fascinated by her, her views, and her writing. Bayley & Ferguson didn’t publish the sketch using the lilac-and-green colour scheme commonly associated with women’s suffrage, but the sketch is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek sideways glance at the suffrage movement. Read on, to see what I mean. The rather obnoxious heroine hardly sells the idea of women’s suffrage and equality to the average man – or woman – in the street.

Mr & Mrs Dobbs at Home: humorous Musical Sketch / (words by M. A. Smith; composed by Constance M. Yorke (London, Glasgow: Bayley & Ferguson, n.d.). Franz Pazdírek listed the piece in his Universal Handbook (1904-10), but erroneously attributed it to Caroline M. Yorke, and Twilight Shadows to M. Constance Yorke – rather confusing, Herr Pazdírek!

So, what of ‘Mr and Mrs Dobbs at Home’? Selina is a spoiled young madam. Mr Dobbs is hen-pecked to an insane degree, submissive beyond measure and seemingly incapable of standing up for himself. Selina says he has driven the maids and the nurse away, so it’s only right that he should do all their work. ‘Enter Mr Dobbs in shirt sleeves and kitchen apron, with broom in one hand, duster in the other, as if he had been sweeping.’ (Does he go out to work? No mention of it. And why have they all gone away? The poor man seems to have no spine, let alone any serious vices!) The baby cries. Who goes and fetches her from the nursery? Mr Dobbs. He says the child is teething. Selina instead accuses him of jabbing her with a nappy pin.

Ah, well. Having told him off for having a quick, sneaky puff of his pipe whilst she was getting herself ready, the pair and their baby set off for a day out to meet one of Selina’s friends. At this point, Mr Dobbs mentions that a ‘lady speaker’ has tried for the third time to see Selina, but he forgot to mention this before. (I missed this the first time I flicked through, but sat up straight when I realised that Selina was being courted by the Suffragettes, Suffragists, or similar.) Privately, he seems to think anyone involved in ‘Women’s Rights’ should be kept well away from his wife – it seems a little late in the day for that, considering Selina already has the upper hand! Of course, Selina sees things differently, and the rest of the sketch is basically a dispute as to whether women can, or cannot, ‘rule as well as the men’, with Mr Dobbs muttering that,

Shirts, vests, and ties and knickers, too, are all now female gear; our coats and hats will follow suit, and presently we’ll see the pater in the mater’s skirt, a-toddling out to tea.

Mr Dobbs’ complaint

It’s not a work of high artistic content! Not that it isn’t harmonically sound or averagely tuneful, but it was probably only ever intended for domestic or amateur entertainment. However, I do smile at the thought that whilst Revd. Scholefield was writing his sermons, Constance was sitting at the piano composing a musical sketch about role reversal – and then publishing it.   (Or had a lyricist originally written it more as a conservative warning than eager anticipation of a brave new world?!)

You never know what you might find when, on a whim, you order something off eBay.

* John A. Parkinson, Victorian Music Publishers: an Annotated List (Warren, Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 1990) – it is worth noting that Parkinson worked in the Music Room of the British Museum.