Lambeth Music History. An Introduction. Part 1

 As part of the 2021 Lambeth Heritage Festival I gave a Zoom talk on aspects of the history of music in Lambeth. For posting on on this blog site I have divided it into 5 parts.

Part 1. Introduction and the Long 18th Century 

Introduction

 Music is an important part of many people’s lives as listeners and performers whether playing musical instruments, singing or dancing. Music has been an important feature of organised social life through bands, orchestras, at organisations’ events and through commercial activity, as well as music making in people’s homes. As well as having a rich music making history, Lambeth also has composers, performers, singers and dancers associated with it, and some pieces of music and song written about it. This talk is an introductory review of the richness of that history which will allow further research to be undertaken.

The districts included in the Lambeth area have changed over time from the days of the Parish Vestry system, the creation of the Metropolitan Borough Council in 1900 and the transfer of the Clapham and Streatham districts from the former Wandsworth Borough Council area to the new Lambeth Council area in 1964/65.

The talk examines this history through a number of themes: the wells and pleasure gardens, the long-18thC, church and music, friendly and charitable organisations, politics and music, music halls, growing diversity in music, school and community music, and black music. A number of composers, conductors, musicians and singers are mentioned. Lambeth is fortunate in having West Norwood Cemetery, with a large number of musicians buried there as detailed in Bob Flanagan’s Musicians pamphlet for the Friends. However most did not have a working or residential link with Lambeth.

Wells and Pleasure Gardens

In many parts of the country facilities were developed where people went to take what they thought were healing waters. Bath and Harrogate being among the best known. Lambeth had its Lambeth Wells opened in 1699 with its purging waters and its musical and other entertainment. Later a room was added for dancing and booths and raffling shops for players and gamblers. It faced spa waters competition, for example from the nearby Dog and Duck at St George's Fields just over the parish boundary. The ownership of the Wells changed hands several times, but it seems to have gone downhill because about 1758, condemned as a nuisance and a common brothel, its dancing licence was refused.

In the area now covered by the St George development was a Tea Garden from May 1774 that could hold up to 1,000 people. Later it became Cumberland Gdns. A military band provided music at an event to celebrate the wedding of Princess Charlotte of Wales and the Prince of Saxe Coburg in July 1816. By 1824, the pleasure garden had become The Royal Cumberland Tavern, with an assembly room and tea-room. In May 1825 the building burnt down. The owners were declared bankrupt in April 1827. The land was later occupied by the South Lambeth Water Works.

It occupied the area covered today by the current Vauxhall Gardens, St Peter's Church, the Upper Kennington Lane frontage from Royal Vauxhall Tavern to St Oswald's Place and the properties on the left hand side of the Place. There is a growing literature on the history of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens which continues to fascinate people.

 Handel

From 1732 Handel’s musical career included open air concerts at the Gardens. The owner/manager Jonathan Tyers commissioned the sculptor Roubiliac to make a marble statue of Handel put on display in 1738. The public rehearsal of his Royal Fireworks music was held at the Gardens, involving a hundred musicians and an audience of more than twelve thousand. He also wrote Vauxhall Hornpipe.

Tyers also commissioned William Hogarth’s friend the painter Peter Monamy to decorate several of the supper-boxes with marine paintings illustrating John Gay’s patriotic ballad Sweet William's Farewell to Black-Eyed Susan published in 1720. By 1730, Richard Leveridge had set the poem to music. The song became a popular classic.

James Worgan (1715–1753) was an organist and cello player, including at the Gardens from 1737 to 1751. His brother John Worgan took over as organist in 1751 and was a composer for it from 1753 to 1761, and again from 1770 to 1774. In 1751 the composer John Stanley played the organ at the Gardens.

Thomas Arne

Thomas Arne, the composer of the music to James Thomson’s song Rule Britannia of 1740, became Vauxhall’s official composer in 1755. Coming to London in 1762 Johann Christian Bach’s symphonies and songs were heard at Vauxhall until at least the early 1790s. A famous singer at the Gardens was Charles Dibdin (1745-1814).

The Tyers family sold the Gardens in 1821 to Frederick Gye and his partners in the London Wine Company. Gye’s son Frederick helped manage the Gardens from about 1830. Later he became an opera impresario.

 

George Alexander Lee (1802-1851) was a musician and impresario who helped with musical entertainments at the Gardens. He died in 1851 at his lodgings at Newton Terrace, Kennington Rd.

 

Juba

 

The Gardens continued to operate until closure in 1859. One of the stars was William Henry Lane, the black American dancer known as Master Juba. He had grown up in an area of New York where from the 1830s there had been a merger of different dance forms including African, Irish, Scottish and English step dancing, and Spanish flamenco, to create tap dance. Juba studied the dance under William Lowe an Irish jig master. In 1844 he became King of All Dancers.

The Long 18thC

William Blake

 William Blake and his wife Catherine moved to Lambeth in 1790. Through his poetry Blake commented on social injustices. Holy Thursday paralleled contemporary reports about a baby found dead in Lambeth Marsh. Jerusalem was later set to music to become the famous hymn.

Its reference to 'dark satanic mills 'may be to his abhorrence at the new factories springing up in the wider area, especially the Albion Mills by Blackfriars Bridge. When the Mills burnt down on 2 March 1791 the light from the fire could be seen from where he lived. The fire became the subject of the extensive popular interest in street ballads, which often commented on current affairs and which were produced very quickly for sale on the street.

Music Publishers

Musical life was aided by publishers. There were many published collections of songs sung at Vauxhall and other venues including in 1770, 1775, 1776 and 1780. John Duckworth, a music engraver, printer and publisher at 1 Catherine Street, Strand from about 1777 to 1780, may be the J. Duckworth of 3 Oakley Street, who published a song about c1795, and/or John Duckworth, a musician living at 6 Paradise Row in 1805.

Thomas Dodd (1771-1850), the former itinerant musician was a print seller and auctioneer based in Lambeth Marsh from 1796.

Thomas Adams born in 1785 was organist at Carlisle Chapel in Lambeth from 1802 to 1814. He was also a composer, and was buried at West Norwood in 1858.

An important social, entertainment and meeting venue was the Horns on the corner of today’s Kennington Rd and Kennington Park Rd. In 1800 Mr Briant became the landlord and ran a famous glee or singing club. He died in 1852.