The Irwell Springs Band

What does it mean to be the best? In athletics you get a medal. For team sports like football there's always a trophy. Baseball, bowling, and even ballroom dancing have events to sort out the best from the rest. In music, solo instrumentalists like pianists and violinists regularly compete for prizes. But one of the oldest musical contests is a match between musical teams that contend for top honors as the best British Brass Band. This national competition dates back to 1853, and this postcard features the Irwell Springs Band of Bacup, Lancashire, who were the winners of the 1905, 1908 and 1913 national brass band contest at the Crystal Palace in London.

The British brass band tradition is a special heritage that continues to be an important part of British musical culture. Its arrangement of brass instruments and choice of music followed a different path than similar brass bands in America and Europe. In particular they are associated with the rise of industry and the British working class. The musicians of the Irwell Springs Band were not classically trained musicians, but instead men who worked at the cotton mills in Bacup. Their competitors came from similar industrial towns with names like the Foden Motor Works Band, the Spencer's Steel Works Band, the Perfection Soap Works Band, and the St. Hilda Colliery Band. One of the most celebrated was the Black Dyke Mills Band from Yorkshire which remains, since 1855, one of the best brass groups still performing.

However in 1913, they only took the third place medal to the Irwell Springs Band. There is a wonderful history of the Irwell Springs Band and their musical achievements at this website - the  Bacuptimes.







Written on the back of this postcard is a note:



Vernon Park is a public park in Stockport outside Manchester, England.








Here we can see the bandstand where they played and the throngs of people surrounding it on that warm summer's day. Surely there are some picnic hampers but they are hard to see. The caption says Vernon Park (Musical Festival), Stockport and the attention of the hundreds if not thousands of spectators is focused on the small band stand.  It must have been a challenge to fit the 26 members of the Irwell Springs Band under that roof.




 
Written on the back is page two of another note that E.E. sent. Unfortunately page one is lost. 









Sometime after I had acquired the two postcards, I bought this cdv photo of a British  bandsman. Dressed in a fancy embroidered uniform with a tall helmet and plume, he holds a cornet. There is no photographer's imprint but on the front someone has written a name - Walter Nuttall. The name is repeated on the back and Bacup is added twice for emphasis. My guess was that the photo dated from around 1885 to 1895. The uniform might indicate a military bandsman or possibly a policeman, but it was hard to be sure.

But my research showed that I already knew this face. The name Bacup referred to the original place name of the band, and when this photo was made Walter Nuttall was only a young cornet soloist. But he went on to become the band's leader. The same bandleader seated in the center of the prize winning Irwell SpringsBand of 1913.







The confirmation comes from one of the best websites on the internet, the IBEW.org  which has an amazing amount of information on the history of brass bands. It keeps a catalog of thousands of historical images of bands from all around the world, and there are dozens of photos of the Irwell Springs Band. One postcard from 1913 included this note written on the back:

This is the photo of the Irwell Springs Band who have just got the cup which they won for the third time in September. It is a beauty. It is gold, studded all over with gems, & is valued at a 1,000 guineas (£1,050 or  5,250 dollars) The Bandsmen each received a gold medal & and the band about £150in money and instruments. The first time they won they got bronze & the second time silver medals. What they will get again if they win I don't know. J.R. Newell

Some historic bands are given a special page on the IBEW.org and the Irwell Springs Band has one with all its history. The band had its start in 1864, and one of the founding members was Walter's father. Born in 1867, Walter Nuttall proved to be a talented musician and capable leader. In 1886 the band acquired new uniforms, and posed for a photo which is found at the IBEW.org archives. I believe Walter Nuttall, age 19, is on the grass in the center, 2nd from right.

Irwell Springs Band 1886 source: IBEW.org

Since Walter's small cdv photograph  was also taken outdoors in a park and in the same uniform as these bandsmen, I suspect that they were both taken on the same day by the same photographer. Perhaps this was a copy given to one of the other bandsmen.

Walter's regular employment was in the mills as a weaver or cotton spinner, but his true calling was as a bandleader. During his tenure as cornet and bandmaster, the Irwell Springs Band played many contests, but in this golden age of brass bands the competition was fierce, and it was no easy task to keep his musicians trained and prepared, men who needed to work in the mill for their living too. Musicians supported the band by paying a membership subscription. The instruments, uniforms, and music were owned by the band and loaned to each bandsman.

When the band won the gold medal in 1913, they played a test piece - music that all the bands had to play, called Labour and Love by Percy Fletcher. This was the first original music commissioned specifically for brass band, and it would go on to become a standard of brass band programs. Prior to this, brass band music consisted primarily of arrangements of orchestral or choral music, like Rossini's William Tell Overture or Wagner's Rienzi Overture.  Walter was leading his bandsmen in new and unfamiliar music, and it takes real musicianship to play such music with distinction.

The Irwell Springs Band came to an end in 1960. Walter, who had gone on to be mayor of Bacup and honored as a Freeman of the Borough, was still alive and by that time was the oldest member of the band.




As I have written before, I collect time machines, and these two postcards and the photo of Walter Nuttall, are again perfect examples. The gold medal, prize money, and trophy were won in September 1913. In July 1914, Walter and the Irwell Springs Band played a concert at Vernon Park and were riding high on well deserved celebrity and fame.

In less than a month, Germany would invade Belgium and France, and the world would be at war. Labour and Love would have a new meaning for these musicians in the dark years ahead.









I found this video on YouTube which is a compilation of old photos of Bacup, Lancashire in Bygone Days. The soundtrack uses music of a brass band to accompany this slide show of an English mill town and its inhabitants.