Having disappeared back to the C19th century, and discovered the wonderful piece of sheet music for the Emily Soldene hit 'Launch the Lifeboat', I, of course, lingered longer, back in those days, and came up with more delightful musical discoveries, songs and dance music from the Victorian era. This one is a beauty ...
Title? I don't know exactly what it means, but soldier (see striped pants) no1 seems to be scraping down his horse. soldier 2 seems to be hanging up a saddle/harness. I see a stirrup dangling. Nice hay-racks. Ah! OK. Giggle tells me that a Stable Call was a trumpet call, alerting cavalry that it's time out to care for their horses.
There was a piece, apparently by Wellington Guernsey, entitled the Stable Call Waltz (for six or sometimes seven trumpets and military band) being played by the band of the Queen's Bays in Ireland in 1844. Colonel Charlton. Then they played the Stable Call Troop. Ah! composer? J Holt.
Date. Late 1848 to January 1849. It was advertised in the provincial press, and reviewed pleasantly.
Captain Coster. Who was he, and why was the dedicated to him? Captain James Coster. Facetiously described as 'gallant and far-famed' in the press. Not. By 1850, he was out of the Lancers and up in court for ungentlemanly pubehaviour.
Some years later, he met his nemesis. A military band frightened the horses of his phaeton and, at the corner of Halkin Street, they ridded themselves of the not-so-gallant Captain who landed head first on the road .. fracturing his skull .. It wasn't terminal, however. Not just yet. He lasted till 22 January 1863, when he died, aged 46, at 14 Cornwall Villas, Willis Rd, Kentish Town, described as formerly Captain in the 16th Queen's Regiment. Seems like he never got another job. He left 'under £2,000' to be administered by a wine merchant named Smith. Oh, he had two (successive) wives, the second of whom, well off, survived him by 28 years and left a small fortune ...
I see that during his soldiering years, he took part in Garrison theatricals. Perhaps that's why he became a dedicatee.
And, lastly, the composer. Josiah George JONES. I spent a wee while exhuming Mr Jones, because I didn't expect him to be Josiah rather than James or John, because he didn't remain Bandmaster of the 16th long after this, and what had looked like a promising career in churning out 'well written' polka arrangements for the rising firm of Joseph Williams somewhy fizzled out.
Josiah was born in Hunslet, Yorks in 1818. He seemingly married Mary Ann née Summerhayes as a teenager, and I see him in 1841 at York Buildings in Bridgwater, Somerset, with a couple of sons, already, and running a business as music and musical instrument-seller and a 'toyman'. I don't think that is a parallel to 'toy boy', maybe he was selling toys as well as music. Welll, it all went wrong. He was declared bankrupt later that year, and scooted out of town to settle in the High St, Taunton (Castle Hotel). Quite what he did there, I hav'n't been able to winkle, nor have I been able to discover when he chucked in shopkeeping and joined the military -- after Taunton he was doing something in Portsmouth -- but he was, anyway, with the 16th regiment, in Norfolk, in 1848.
And in 1848 his name started to appear on sheet-music covers. The 'Douro Waltzes', 'The Bixley Lodge Galop', 'The Good Night Polka'.'The Abbotsford Polka', 'The Military Schottische', 'The Carrawroe Polka', 'The Bridal Wreath', 'The Hardwicke Polka' ... published by Williams, and collated into a guinea Polka Album 'containing alll the popular polkas composed by ..', 'containing as much music as is usually published for 2gns') by the composer ...
But 'The Military Steeplechase Polka' was published circa 1851 by D'Almaine. As was Jones's Military Band Journal. And Mr Jones had left the army and -- advertised as 'pupil of Bochsa on the harp' -- had settled at 3 Trinity Terrace, Radford Rd, in Coventry. His wife 'pupil of H Field' taught piano. But that didn't last long. He advertised that he had been 'advised by several eminent physicians to leave the army and settle in some mild climate'. The mild climate he chose was the Isle of Wight, where he opened a music warehouse in Union Street, Ryde. He founded the Ryde Philharmonic Society, gave concerts with his wife and teenaged cornettist son, acted at Church organist in Cowes, staged Balls, gave classes on the Hullah singing method, conducted the Rifles Band, imported some well-known singers for concerts ...
The Jones family (seven or eight of them now) can be seen in Ryde in the 1861 census, but soon after they removed to Winchester ... Josiah died there 27 April 1887, Mary Ann 13 October 1891. Josiah junior followed where his father had led. After a period with Kirkman's pianos in London, he reyruned to the Island and held positions in Cowes and Newport, up to his death in 1907.
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Hic iacet Josiah Jones |
Another inviting music sheet also led me into previously uncharted (by me) territory
Both Tinney and Saville were well-known in the area of 'fashionable dancing': the former as a skilled composer and arranger of dance music the latter as 'one of the most successful cotillion leaders ... in fashionable London.
Frederick George TINNEY (b Marylebone 21 February 1815; d Pimlico 13 November 1860) was the son of another musician, William Tinney and his wife Chressy Ann. He ventured as a composer at a young age, but found his niche as an arranger of popular operatic fantasias and, above all, as the pianist and musical director of Charlies Ollivier's Quadrille Band. In 1848 he joined with the equally successful Charles Coote, and Coote and Tinney's Band became one of the most fashionably patronised of dance orchestras. The partners ran their business in tandem with a music publishing firm, but the whole went down, in 1857, in bankruptcy. Tinney was, by thi time, in poor health, and he would die, at the age of 45, 13 November 1860, leaving a widow and seven children.

Augustus William Saville Lumley or Lumley Saville (b 5 December 1828; d 13 April 1887) was a sort-of-aristocrat. One of the four illegitmate sons of the unmarried Earl of Scarborough and his concubine Agnes something. Number one son went on to become a Lord, a Privy Councillor, a diplomat in high places etc. Number two son went, of course, into the church. Augustus led cotillions.
He attended Corpus Christi, bought himself commissions in the Life Guards et al during a decade, but doesn't seem to have actually fought anyone. He became an adjunct to the Prince of Wales, was named a Colonel, was nominated Marshall of Ceremonies to the Queen ... but was sued by his tailor for 'neglecting' to pay for his ceremonial uniforms. On that occasion he was listed as 'artist'. And he was. In 1880 he exhibited a full-length portrait of his friend, the Prince, at the Royal Academy. It wasn't much liked. And he led cotillions.
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"Cotillion" |
I don't think this was one of them. In spite of its 'credits' it doesn't seem to have been performed much. A W Nicholson's Avalanche Polka, twenty years later, did rather bettter. Anyway, I see this piece being played, naturally, by the still-thus-named Coote and Tinney's Band in 1859. I think the quality of the cover engraving shows sign of declining days. But it got played at HM's State Ball (Coote, its publisher supplied the music) before Leon Leoni, then W C Levey brought out their Avalanche Galops ...
Alpine motifs seem to have been popular. But I'm not getting into researching the poundingly prolific Mr Charles Handel Rand Marriott ... another year.
I like this one better. Kiko? Qui ça? No idea ... Even Yves Ballu can't catch her! But she reminds me of my mountaineering great-grandmother!
Date? Well, after 1865. When Hutchins and Romer sold up in 1884 they were still in the same premises. I'd say probably 1860s. Alpensteigerins were à la mode at that time.
So the tale beind this one stays hidden. I'll try again another time ..