The Band played concerts, too, in Doncaster, in and out of doors, not infrequently featuring compositions, mainly marches and dances, and arrangements by Birkinshaw himself. This band won many prizes in competitions between 18, some of them held in Doncaster. However in 1856 a fresh start was made with a Doncaster Plant Works Band, again a brass ensemble, that was conducted by George Birkinshaw (father of a similarly named leading cornet player with the world famous Black Dyke Mills Band and celebrated in William Rimmer's march Viva Birkinshaw!). This band soon faded out its organisation was informal and there was no regular bandmaster or musical director. On 5 June 1854 it accompanied the Plant schoolchildren on an excursion to Askern Spa on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of the Plant Schools. It celebrated its anniversary on 28 June 1853 with a supper at which 66 persons were present. At Christmas 1852 a Doncaster Loco Band played hymns around the town this had been formed in June that year and £50 spent on instruments. Doncaster's GNR "Plant" works opened in 1853, it is generally understood, though my researches suggest that parts of it were operational by the last two months of 1852. If I focus my observations in this direction on my home town of Doncaster, this is not to imply that similar activities did not take place on railways other than the Great Northern and later on the LNER, especially at Crewe and Swindon (respectively LNWR (LMS) and GWR. But as a kind of overture it may be worth recalling that railwaymen have themselves made music, in the same way that throughout most of recorded history working men in all industries have done so. ![]() And there are doubtless other examples.ĭozens, indeed hundreds (I mention well over 600) of musical compositions have featured the railway and this is basically what this paper is about. The father of the tenor Peter Pears was a railwayman. Sir Ralph Wedgewood of the LNER was related to Ralph Vaughan Williams. Sir Alexander Butterworth, of the North Eastern Railway, was the father of the composer George Butterworth killed on the Western Front in 1916 aged 31 and still remembered as a minor master of the "English folk song" school. One or two families have had connection with both. It is hardly surprising that railways and music should have been associated for practically all of that 170-odd years. They have now perhaps lost their primacy in that respect but they remain important. Railways, in the modern sense, have been with us for some 170 years and for maybe half that time they were THE major form of long-haul transportation by land. ![]() Music is a social and artistic activity of the first importance.
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