Looking Back: 150 years of open‑air bands in St Helens

The popular Red Rose Concert Band performed at the Boathouse in a Sunday afternoon event supported by St Helens Council.

What the organisers probably did not know is that this month is the 150th anniversary of regular open-air concerts starting in St Helens.

However, back in 1876 there were no parks in the town – unless one counts the borough cemetery, which attracted many visitors during the summer.

It was just about the only public place that had trees and grass and its northerly location protected the site from the toxic St Helens' atmosphere.

But a cemetery was hardly the place to strike up a band – unless you were trying to wake up the dead!

However, the new Town Hall – with open space in front that would in 1903 be expanded and called Victoria Square – was ideal.

And so in April 1876, Major Rothwell of the 2nd Lancashire Engineer Volunteers applied for permission for his regimental band to play there.

The concerts took place every Tuesday evening during the summer months commencing in May.

Of course, indoor band concerts within such venues as the Volunteer Hall in Mill Street were already regularly held and brass bands would also play at outdoor events, such as athletics festivals.

But regular public concerts in the open air during the summer months were something new.

With the creation of Victoria, Taylor and Thatto Heath parks in the latter years of the 19th century, programmes of summer band contests soon began within these and other parkland.

But for some time music could not be played on Sundays because of objections from church leaders.

As in 1876 when regular open-air band concerts first began, Tuesday evenings were instead chosen as the time when park performances took place.

In Charles Forman's oral history collection 'Industrial Town', an unnamed interviewee born c. 1895 said: "I danced in Sutton Park on a Tuesday.

"There'd be a big band there, and in the park the children came from everywhere."

Sunday music in St Helens was first seriously touted in 1910 but councillors rejected the idea.

However, in the following year when Joseph Beecham was mayor, the pharmaceutical boss supported the idea and offered to defray all expenses.

The Clock Face Colliery Band performed in many St Helens parks (Image: Stephen Wainwright)

The council's subsequent decision to allow music on the Sabbath did not impress the St Helens Reporter, who on July 7, 1911, wrote: "By a distinctly convincing majority, the Town Council, on Wednesday decided to play with fire.

"They agreed to experiment with Sunday music in the parks."

The newspaper called the council's decision a "retrograde step" and a "lamentable exhibition of moral cowardice".

And wondering how the experiment would be judged a success, the Reporter asked: "Will it be the number of people who may swarm the parks and have their ears tickled with the strains of brass band music?"

At a meeting of the St Helens Parks Committee a fortnight later, Councillor Twist seemed to think that the number of attendees would be a good measure of success.

He described how on the previous Sunday afternoon as many as 2 - 3,000 people had been enjoying the music in Sutton Park.

And Councillor Glynn said: "If the people who have been kicking up a bother about Sunday music would only go to the parks and see for themselves, they would be convinced it was a very good thing for the public."

However, the Chairman of the meeting pointed out that for the objectors it was not a question of popularity but of principle as to how the Sabbath should be marked.

St Helens conductor George Groves with the military band of the 5th South Lancs Regiment (Image: Stephen Wainwright)

A few days later a letter-writer in the St Helens Reporter described the "innovation" as "wicked and dangerous".

Even two decades later at the annual church meeting of St Mark's in 1930, a resolution was passed protesting that permitting Sunday band music in neighbouring Victoria Park was a desecration of the Sabbath.

That was despite the time of the concerts not conflicting with services or any other church activities.

Sunday music in St Helens remained controversial for some time.

However, by the 1960s such concerts were accepted and it was the playing of sport on the Sabbath in council-run parks and playing fields that became the subject of great contention.

Stephen Wainwright's books, The Hidden History Of St Helens Vols 1 to 5, are available from the St Helens Book Stop, The World of Glass, and online from Amazon and eBay with free delivery. Price £12 each.