Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra - Origins

Origins

In 1862 the first (and only) orchestra in Huddersfield to achieve lasting permanence was established by Rev JH Thomas. Though there is clear, if sketchy evidence, to show that ‘ad hoc’ ensembles came and went in the town before that year, it was then that – ‘Mr Thomas’s Band’ was formed. Changing its name to the Fitzwilliam Street Philharmonic Society and then ultimately Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra, a claim has been made to have had an unbroken existence over a period of 148 years.

It has recently been possible to establish beyond doubt a matter previously disputed – exactly when the orchestra became the ‘Huddersfield Phil’. S H Crowther, in An Orchestral Centenary, his regrettably brief sketch of the orchestra’s history claimed 1871 as the date and the orchestra duly celebrated its centenary in 1971. However as R A Edwards later pointed out in And the Glory (his history of Huddersfield Choral Society) that this claim was simply inaccurate (Crowther had got a vital date wrong); and the society’s present archivist now confirms that it was shortly after Thomas’s death that the orchestra renamed itself the Huddersfield Philharmonic, giving its first concert under that name on 7 February 1885.

Be that as it may, it is clear that like those of many other now distinguished organisations, the orchestra’s beginnings were humble enough. The Rev J H Thomas was a Cambridge graduate, expert linguist and accomplished musician, who was initially ordained into the Church of England but who later abandoned Anglicanism in favour of Unitarianism. In 1862 he came to Huddersfield as Unitarian minister in Fitzwilliam Street, where he remained until his death in 1884. According to the Huddersfield Examiner obituary notice,

‘he got a number of lads and young men around him. For five or six years he gave lessons gratuitously…. And bought many instruments for the band out of his small means…For the first few years the music of the band was exceedingly crude and often painfully out of tune; but the band was always an improving one…’

Among the Rev Thomas’s successors as conductors were several who were intimately connected with the town’s other leading musical organisations. One of the most remarkable of these was John North (conductor also of the Choral and Glee & Madrigal Societies). He began his working life as a butcher’s errand boy at the age of nine. A vacancy soon arose for an errand boy at Joe Wood’s music shop (founded in 1850) and Johnny North was taken on. This was to transform his life completely. He at once revealed great musical gifts, and encouraged by Joe Wood, he became an adept pianist and reliable tuner; he also took up the cornet and developed into a fine violinist.

Following the death of Joe Wood, North joined Wood’s sons as a partner in the business, where he proved to be no less adept as a businessman than he had already shown himself to be as a musician. In his short and crowded life (he died at the age of 39) he held various posts as organist; in addition to the Huddersfield Choral Society, he conducted the Holmfirth and Keighley Societies and also further afield.

The programmes given by the orchestra in John North’s day were typical of the period with a multiplicity of items; the orchestra played nothing more substantial than an overture, and vocal and instrumental solos predominated. The October 1888 concert, for instance, featured two vocalists, two pianists and a violinist; the purely orchestral works ranged from Rossini’s Semiramide overture and a gavotte (True Love) to a selection from Cellier’s Dorothy and a Waldteufel waltz. Three years later a similar programme was given, though this did contain a full concerto – Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto played on the ‘grand pianoforte’ by Master G G Stocks.