Lady Florence Duncombe and her husband Major A C Dumcombe
of Calwich Abbey near the village of Ellastone on the Staffordshire/Derbyshire
border were active pillars of the community.
Major Duncombe was JP for both Derbyshire and Staffordshire and formerly
High Sheriff for Staffordshire. He
was aided in all his ventures by his redoubtable wife and he was a very
supportive husband in her enterprises.
In 1905 Lady Florence arranged
the first Art Exhibition of the Calwich Abbey Amateur Art Society with Judges,
also open to other competitors not members of the Society.
It featured embroidery, paintings, carving and photography.
There were in addition, special Artisan classes for high quality lace
making, knitting, darning, embroidery etc.
Expert judges were engaged for all sections including the likes of Mr C C
Keene and Mr T H Thorpe for photography.
Before carrying on with our
Festival history I must slightly digress with the story of the three Marys.
The first in the picture is an outstanding Soprano Mary Wakefield from
Kendal well known on the London scene. She
was discovered by Henry Leslie, her mentor, who developed the non-competitive
Festivals of Birmingham, Leeds and Norwich.
Mary encouraged by her
father held a competitive Festival in 1883 with an adjudicator in the family
home. This grew after several
years; the format was competitions in the day with a concert at night involving
massed choirs drawn from the competitors.
Miss Wakefield encouraged other Festivals to start and trained choirs,
travelling in her horse and trap prior to the competitions.
So successful was she that her findings were produced in an article
called The Aims and Objects of Musical Competitive Festivals and How to Form
Them. Copies of the booklet
sold well. At Mary
Wakefield’s death after long service in the field medals were struck in her
memory and given to then existing Festivals.
Derby Festival holds such a medal.
Number two Mary is Mary Egerton
who lived in the village of Terrington near York. Between approximately 1890 and
1910 she organised, trained and entered village choirs for the Festivals that
she had established. In her view
choral competitions should break down barriers by a common interest in church,
chapel and the home. Dr William
McNaught, one of the first extremely capable adjudicators (then known as judges)
supported this lady and the Festival movement, adjudicating at fifteen Festivals
in 1903 and heard over 600 choirs in 1907.
The third Mary was Lady Mary
Trefusis known to many as Lady Mary Lygon (*** in the Enigma Variations of
Edward Elgar). Like the other
two Marys she trained choirs and also was involved in the Folk Dance movement.
Lady Mary survived the other two Marys, all three being involved in the
Association of Music Festivals to which we were affiliated in early days, and
then she alone with the birth of the Federation of Music Festivals which
we joined and are still members to this day.
Fired up with the success of the
Art Competition at Calwich Abbey and no doubt having seen the book produced by
Mary Wakefield, Lady Florence Duncombe made enquiries about the possibility of
forming a Festival. An
inaugural meeting was called on Saturday 26 January 1908 at which Miss Egerton
attended together with Dr McNaught. A
well attended meeting was held in the Hall Hotel, Ashbourne to promote the idea
of a competitive Festival. Rev
Canon Morris, Vicar of St Oswald’s Church, Ashbourne was in the Chair.
Miss Egerton, Dr McNaught and Lady Florence Duncome were on the platform.
Miss Egerton and Dr McNaught in turn gave details on how the Festival
competitions were run, Dr McNaught stressing the importance of advice from the
Judges. After many questions
successfully fielded by the guest speakers, Major Duncombe from the floor
proposed “That an association be started in this neighbourhood called the Dove
& Churnet Valleys Choral and Instrumental Competition.
This was agreed to by the meeting.
Long term they hoped to have instrumental as well as choral competitions.
Lady Florence Duncombe was voted as President and the Chairman was to be
Canon Morris. Sadly, Miss Egerton
was to die in 1913.
Such was the enthusiasm of the
founding Committee that the first Festival (one month after that year’s
Calwich Abbey Art competition) took place on 9 April 1908. Despite the short time for organisation there were 900
competitors in choirs. The
Festival was fortunate to engage the services of Dr McNaught as the adjudicator.
After the vote of thanks at the end of the competitions by Lady Florence
Duncombe the audience broke into applause and sang “For he’s a jolly good
fellow”. This
first competition, a Choirs only event, took place in a marquee in the
grounds of the Hall Hotel, Ashbourne, there being a large audience for the
competitors. At night there
was a concert from some of the choirs, some choir members singing solo items,
and a cello solo.
From this promising start the
Dove & Churnet Festival continued to grow. 1909 saw the first visit of the Festival to Denstone
College and the Dove & Churnet returned several times to Denstone but, as it
was not central audiences could not be persuaded in large enough numbers to
ensure that the Festival was both a musical and financial success.
The losses in audience revenue hit the Festival finances.
The Town Halls at Ashbourne,
Cheadle and Uttoxeter were all tried which are all in the Dove & Churnet
Valleys, sometimes two venues in any one year, However, due to the continued success of the Festival
which now also boasted a few instrumental items, these halls proved to be too
small and larger venues were looked for in the vicinity.
It was felt that a large building with space for an audience would
hopefully ensure capacity for an audience as well as the competitors, the
Festival could then be successful on all fronts.
The Dove & Churnet were so
well organised that the Committee after the 1914 Festival had already booked the
date and adjudicator for 1915 but, World War I intervened.
From 1915 to 1919 the Festival did not run but some of the previously
competing Choirs had run fund raisers for the war effort.
After the War, in 1919 a public meeting was held to see whether there
would be any interest in re-starting the Festival and they were able to do so in
1920.
1923 saw a new adventure for the
Dove Churnet Festival. They
tried Derby and performed in the Central Hall - a Hall in Derby Co-op, East
Street. This was once a favourite
concert venue in Derby but eventually taken back as offices by the Co-op.
However, recently it has been restored by the shop who have tenanted that
part of the building and the upper half of the former concert hall can be seen
in their Men’s Department. The
Festival ran on 12 and 13 April 1923.
The decision to try Derby paid
off and the Committee held several meetings later that year resulting in the
Festival becoming known as the Derbyshire and North Staffordshire Musical
Festival by now running for up to four days.
Local performing arts organisations were encouraged to send
representatives to network with the Festival and the Committee acquired people
on the arts scene in Derby. For
the first time there were delegates to publicise in the region.
Under the previous scheme regular competing choirs had sent a member to
the Annual General Meeting of the Dove Churnet Festival..
Two of the large organisations
who closely liased with the newly named Festival were the LMS Railway Temperance
Union Musical Festival and the Derby Free Church Musical Festival.
By 1935 they had joined forces officially, the combined Festival now
being called Derby, Derbyshire and North Staffordshire Musical Festival – Held
at Derby.
The variety of classes had been
extending over the years. A
mainly choral competition by 1935 now embraced classes for Folk Dance, Vocal,
Piano, Violin, Elocution (later Drama, Mime and Verse Speaking).
By the following year the Festival was now running for two weeks.
From the early days of the
Festival Lady Florence Duncombe had been aware of several music shops in both
Burton and Derby which regularly advertised in the Ashbourne newspapers.
In the issue of 7 August 1908 of The Ashbourne News there is a large box
advert of Fould’s then of ‘Beethoven House’, Iron Gate, Derby for their
twelfth Annual Clearance Sale of Pianos, Organs and Piano Players.
It is not surprising then that Foulds’ Derby shop should become
involved in the project when the Festival moved to Derby.
The then Manager of the Derby shop was James Locke and both he and his
wife, who in time became Director of Competitions, spearheaded the further
expansion of the Festival together with their connections in the music, drama
and arts world. Members of
staff at the shop also helped in running the Festival.
During World War II the Festival
did not run but after the War re-started, being re-named the Derby and
Derbyshire Musical Festival. Mrs
James Locke in her capacity as Director of Competitions brought much younger
talent on board including her son, John Locke, and her daughter-in-law Mona
Locke. The Foulds family
themselves were involved in the Festival by now - Philip Foulds and his wife
Jean. These four together
with their friends and acquaintance moved the Festival forward.
The Festival has never been
afraid to change with the times. By
1968 the Festival was flourishing and probably for variety at its peak.
It now ran for at least a month The classes were Art, Instrumental,
English Folk Dancing, Junior Choirs, Vocal, Ballet, Speech and Drama, Scottish
Dancing and Adult Choirs. Given the wide spread of disciplines covered it was
felt appropriate that there be a change in name and in 1969 it became Derby Arts
Festival – Competitive. In 1973,
the sixty fifth anniversary of the start of the Festival, the name of the
Festival changed again to its current name of Derby Arts Festival.
Some years ago, due to lack of
support we ceased to run the English Folk Dancing and Scottish Dancing in their
time well supported sections with section dancing parties at night. Also the Art
Section has not run for a couple of years.
However, on the other hand, the Ballet section is enormous attracting
both large entries and audiences, which sadly is not always the case for other
sections. In addition, the Section
hosts the Derby heat of the Miss Dance competition which is a National
competition - the latest of
initiatives hosted by our Festival.
The Festival has always felt
that it was there for the competitors to obtain good advice from the
adjudicators, following the original precepts of the founders of the movement.
The early motto of the Federation is still honoured in spirit :-
“Competitors are not rivals
but comrades pacing one another on the road to perfection.”
The Festival organisers’ long term aim has always been to offer such opportunities to all those taking part.
© Alison Haslam August 2007