Sherburn Brass Bands – Sherburn Local History Society

A History of Sherburn Brass Bands
Near Malton in North Yorkshire
Anne Collier – 2008 ( Copyright )

Music is part of life and creation and sound, and because sound emerges from the elements and all the creatures of the earth, music has been with human beings since time began. There are numerous myths about its origin; some say music comes from the sun or the moon or the gods and because music can send the human spirit soaring into realms of ecstasy, others say it comes from the spirit world. One writer claims: Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, to soften rocks and bend the knotted oak and another writes music is the food of love…….

Music reveals how people have felt about life at different times and in different places and there must have been vocal music long before instrumental because voices were made first! The Bible tells us in Genesis Ch 4 v 21 that Jubal, the son of Lamech who was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ was the inventor of instrumental music and music, singing and musical instruments are mentioned many times in the scriptures

Some historians claim that band music started as long ago as 1300BC when the reverberations of the trumpets and the rhythmical marching feet of the trumpeters of Joshua, reduced the walls of Jericho to rubble, but others argue that was far too long ago to be agreed with certainty. Nevertheless, the bible indicates that the age-old profession of trumpeter was needed even before that event and has been used throughout the history of the world to gather people together on feast days, to call together solemn assemblies, to warn nations of impending danger and to call armies to prepare for battle, but more important still, to call people together to worship God for, weren’t we created to worship Him?

In the New Testament, St Paul writes to the first Christian believers: Lo! I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed……. (I Corinthians chapter 15 verse 51).

Between those far off bible days up to the 12th and 15th centuries AD, there is a time gap which historians have been unable to fill, but they say that groups or bands of strolling players became popular in the 16th century with the advent of fairs and markets especially in Yorkshire. The band would maybe consist of a trumpet, a horn, a bugle, some form of drum and other sundry instruments which would probably produce more discord than harmony and no doubt from time to time, would provoke the crowds into throwing missiles at the players. When the missiles hit one of the bandsmen his reaction was likely to be more entertaining than the music. Consequently, the members of the band tended to keep on the move and one bandsman was said to remark to a younger player: We marches because it’s harder to hit a moving target. The opening of a fair was frequently proclaimed by a loud and long call by a trumpeter on his elementary instrument and James II, King of England from 1685-88, created the office of Master of the Revels who had the power to licence all musicians and singers. A 1680 edict declared: The Mayor, Bailiffs, Sheriffs, Justices or Constables are to apprehend and imprison all as do stroll about to make show with the use of trumpets and wind music without licence from the sergeant controller of His Majesty’s Trumpets. In the early 1800’s, men were known to band together with musical instruments to muster courage and raise spirits to enable them to make demands upon employers for concessions against hardship and oppression, but historians have not been able to decide if this banding together of marching men, was the true beginning of brass bands.

Live music and village bands must have been an important feature of community life when people rarely left their village and had to create their own entertainment. Regular village concerts enabled musicians to exercise their talents and in the mid 1800’s, the people of Sherburn were well known in the district for their cultivation and love of music both sacred and secular. One Saturday evening in October 1857, a group of amateurs performed the first in a series of operatic concerts at the Railway Tavern (later re-named The Pigeon Pie Hotel) on Sherburn High Street (now the A64). The Band (presumably a village band) played a waltz Fairest of the Fair, a quadrille Little Bo-Peep and Overture to Guy Mannering. Messrs Sleightholme and Bielby sang a duet The Canadian Boat Song and other songs included Little Priest of Felton, Allendale, The Cries of London, Holy Friar, The Death of Sir Joe Moore, Mary of Argyle and a comic song How to cure the Mullygrabbs. At the end of the concert everyone sang Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen. Of the gentlemen named, the only one who appeared to be living in the village was Joseph Bielby a tailor, and his wife Ann and at least seven children Betsy, James, John, Mary Ann, Hannah, Richard and Tom. Similar performances were held throughout the ensuing winter enabling Sherburn people to progress along with the age in the cultivation of music.

A few years later on Friday 18^th February 1870, the first of a series of readings with instrumental and vocal music was given in Sherburn School. The Rev John Mason vicar of Sherburn from 1834-73, welcomed a large audience who’d come to enjoy and assess the talents of the entertainers, most of whom were prominent parishioners. The first half opened with an instrumental duet La Garde Montante by the vicar on violin-cello and his widowed daughter Hannah Earnshaw on pianoforte. The vicar read Bobby Banks Bodderment and Lal Dinah Grayson in Cumberland dialect. Hannah Earnshaw and Margaret 11111Clarkson from Manor Farm sang a duet The Gypsy Countess, Hannah sang solo Dermot Astore, the village surgeon Joseph Moore sang Reuben Wright and Phoebe Brown and St Hilda’s Church Choir sang: Hail Smiling Morn, Since first I saw your face, Hark, the lark and The Hardy Norseman. The vicar and Hannah opened the second half with No 1 of Haydn’s Symphonies on pianoforte and violin cello, the Vicar read Joe and the Geologist in Cumberland dialect, Hannah sang Oh no, we never mention her and the choir sang the glee There’s nae luck about the house, a glee being a jolly quick tempo song by several singers hoping to encourage mirth and merriment! After the vicar read Life on the Way, everyone sang God Save the Queen.

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