Photograph of Manchester Elementary School-children's choir, taken in 1929 at the Free Trade Hall with the Halle Orchestra, after a recording session (which produced the popular rendition of Purcell's `Nymphs and Shepherds') for Columbia Records.

The Choir consisted of 60 boys and 190 girls, aged 9 to 14, drawn from 50 schools (mainly `central') all over Manchester. The choir was predominantly working-class since those children whose parents could afford musical instruments and music lessons went into the school children's orchestra; Mr. Rose estimates that a third of the choir's parents were unemployed; the children were taught to sing phonetically to erase local dialect.

The photograph is unique in that it records the only collaboration between the universally renowned orchestra and a choir of 250 working class school children lacking conventional nusical training, (Grammar School pupils were assumed to have no time to spare for non-academic endeavours such as this, which required two evenings a week rehersal throughout the whole academic year). As the prints cost 5/- each at the time, the children, given their background, could not afford copies (only six of the 180 members Mr. Rose was able to contact in 1975 held a copy). The photograph was arranged spontaneously, thus the children are not in concert dress, but dressed in school uniform or evening clothes and they are out of formation; it is the first photograph of any sort of the choir.

The photograph shows the old Free Trade Hall, before the interior was destroyed during the bombing of 1940-41. The orchestra consists entirely of men because of the conductor's, Hamilton Harty, insistence that, during the depression, women were not to be employed as they might be taking a place that a man, as the dominant bread-winner of a family, could fulfil.

The adults on the photograph are: left foreground, left background and centre middle - Registrars from Manchester Education Committee; centre foreground - Walter Carroll (Music Advisor to Manchester Education Committee, 1923-1935, the first such appointment made in the Country), Gertrude Riall (Carroll's assistant), and Hamilton Harty (Conductor of the Halle Orchestra); right middle - Edna Jamieson (Accompaniest to the choir); the remainder are members of the Halle Orchestra.

The Manchester School-Children's choir existed from 1925-1939 and grew out of the combined choirs (from 3,4, or 5 schools and consisting of about 50 choiristers) which, starting in 1923 gave concerts - usually in local Town Halls - during Civic Week. The concert with the Halle lasted from 1929 until Walter Carroll's retirement in 1935.

See Stanley Rose, 'Nymphs and Shepherds - a personal account of the 1920s Manchester Schoolchildrens Choir', available at City Library (our ref: 784.092 Ro)

See Notes field for list of names of members of the Association of Nymphs & Shepherds from gold disc.

Negative Sheet Number C12/1

Related Material:Nymphs and Shepherds

Below are listed the names of the Association of Nymphs and Shepherds members.

These names were transcribed by Helen Brierley, a volunteer with Greater Manchester County Record Office, from the gold disc currently on display in the Henry Watson Music Library, 1st floor, Central Library. (in an alcove near the customer information desk)

Nymphs

Ruth Adams

Lucy C. Alexander

Winifred Appleton

Hilda Bancroft

Ivy 'Jackie' Beckett

Margaret Bell

Alison Benger

Dorothy E. Bentney

Eleanor Blaney

Hilda Bostock

Dorothy E. Bradley

Ethel Broadbent

Nancy Brown

Ethel Browning

Lillian Buckley

Mary Burnell

Beatrice E. Carter

Joyce W. Case

Winifred Cameron-Churm

Trevelyan Collinson

Grace Crane

Nellie Cumbs

Florence Damesick

Doris M. Davies

Anne Dawson

Ethel M. D'eath

Mabel Denham

Muriel M. Doherty

John Donachie

Hazel Doyle

Adeline Duncan

Dorothea S. Edwards

Irene Ellison

Edith Farrell

Nell P. Fryearson

Florence A. Garside

Mona Gaunt

Dorothy M. Grace

Majorie Green

Elsie Grieve

Winifred Hales

Florence A. Halman

Moira K. Harrison

Elsie Hart

Alice J. Haynes

Winifred Hoeland

Vera Holmes

Connie Hopley

Ellen Houghton

Florence Howarth

Dorothy S. Isherwood

Natalie M. Jackson

Jeanie Johnston

Ann J. Jones

Eileen Jones

Violet Jones

Louise Kallenberg

Rita Kay

Emma King

Esther Knape

Edna Langham

Millicent Lans

Doris Leach

Nora E. Leashon

Winifred Lindsey

Lillian L. Lund

Eileen Lynch

Ada Maher

Kathleen Maher

Gladys M. Malarkey

Violet Mallon

Ena Magin

Edith Matthews

Nell McManus

Edna McMillin

Maisie McVittie

Dorothy Midgelow

Margaret Millar-Sharpe

Margaret Miller

Monica Morley

Ivy D. Morris

Molly Mountain

Florence Myatt

Margaret Nelson

Dorothy B. Newton

Evelyn G. Norman

Muriel H. J. Oates

Margaret E. Okpa

Ida Odlfield

Edith Parkinson

Elsie Parkinson

Edna Pearse

Mollie Phizacklea

Edith M. Powell

Nellie Prestwood

Mary F. Pritchard

Edith M. Pygott

Freda Rhodes

Alice E. Robinson

Alice Seel

Edna Sharp

Freda Sharples

Audrey Shaw

Edna Slack

E. Freda Smith

Elsie C. Smith

Elsie M. Smith

Edith W. Southwell

Anne Sparrow

Margaret Stafford

Eva Steedman

Anne Steele

Kathleen Stevenson

Joan M. Stewart

Margaret Stroulger

Pearl Thomas

Charlotte V. Thornton

Nora Walker

Jean Warburton

Molly Waters

Ivy Weake

Nell Whitmore

Edna Williams

Dorothy Woolrich

Hilda Youd

Lorna F. Young

Shepherds

George Bains

John Berridge

Arthur L. Brown

Sydney Brunskill

Norman Demaine

Arthur E. Evans

Leslie B. Evans

George Harries

Fred Heald

Charles R. Hicks

Harold Hill

Jack Jackman D.F.C

George A. Kelly

Douglas Kershaw

Gilbert K. Lamb

Joseph McDermott

Ernest Needham

Jack Owen

Alfred J. Parker

Edgar Parsonage

Harry Read

Albert Richards

Herbert Riley

Stanley Rose

V Laurie Sargent

Norman Shaw

Ernest Taylor

John D. Thornhill

Dougles Wilde