a military band. Leeds became his new base. He apparently joined a local bohemian arts group called the Savage Club that met in an artist’s workshop, and certainly led the orchestra at Collinson’s Café in King Edward Street in the heart of a newly developed shopping area.
Wallace Hartley with the Bridlington Municipal Orchestra aka Royal Viennese Band (front row fourth from left). Orchestra director Sigmund Winternitz stands next to him.
The recording industry was in its infancy in the early 1900s and music was still synonymous with live performance. Children learned to play instruments not with the hope of becoming a “star” but because playing and singing were regarded as social assets. (James McCartney, born in Lancashire in 1902, told future Beatle Paul: “Learn to play the piano, son, and you’ll always get invited to parties.”) It was the age of sheet music and the pianoforte, when families would gather in living rooms to sing the latest popular songs. Collieries, mills, and factories, particularly in the north of England, formed bands and the Victorian emphasis on temperance and clean living resulted in parks, “recreation grounds,” and “pleasure gardens” furnished with often-ornate bandstands.
Teahouses and coffeehouses began as genteel rest spots where people could take light refreshments in a nonalcoholic environment. They were safe alternatives to public houses, and women, in particular, were drawn to them. During the first decade of the century, they began to offer afternoon “tea dances” and fashionable restaurants introduced dance floors. Prestigious hotels such as the Ritz and Savoy in London already had their own orchestras that would play during afternoon tea and evening drinks.
Collinson’s Café, Leeds, now a Jigsaw fashion store but with many origianl features retained.
Roof at the site of Collinson’s Café, Leeds, where Hartley played in the orchestra.
Collinson’s Café was a stylish property that opened in 1903 and would become a Leeds institution. A long narrow entrance area opened up into a large semicircle where the orchestra would have played. Above them was a balcony and above the balcony a tall glass dome. Staircases swept upward from the ground-floor level and all the windows were leaded with stained glass designs. The streaming light, colored glass, and music combined to produce an atmosphere of elegance and beauty.
Towns and cities considered their musical calendars to be indicators of sophistication, and seaside resorts used music to pull in visitors. Visitors might choose Eastbourne over Bournemouth or Southport over Blackpool simply because of the quality of music available in the hotels, bandstands, pavilions, and concert halls. Local councils would subsidize orchestras because of the value they added to their towns.
This all helped make music a viable profession. There was an increasing demand for players, teachers, conductors, and directors. A good versatile musician could move from opera house to tearoom and from concert hall to bandstand. Many of the great classical composers—including Mahler, Delius, Elgar, Ravel, Holst, and Debussy—were still writing, their latest works being premiered around the country and appreciated by the same people who liked Gilbert and Sullivan or the latest hits from the music hall.
It must have been while working at Collinson’s that Hartley met Maria Robinson, a tall dark-haired girl who lived with her family twelve miles away in Boston Spa. She was the eldest of four children, her father, Benjamin, being a woollen manufacturer in the Leeds suburb of Wortley. He’d become prosperous enough to buy St. Ives, a huge detached villa in Boston Spa that had once been an inn. Hartley became a regular visitor and he and Maria, along with her sister Margaret and Margaret’s boyfriend John Wood, would go for long walks in the surrounding countryside or take a rowing boat out on the River Wharfe.
By the time of his thirtieth
Wallace Hartley with the Bridlington Municipal Orchestra aka Royal Viennese Band (front row fourth from left). Orchestra director Sigmund Winternitz stands next to him.
The recording industry was in its infancy in the early 1900s and music was still synonymous with live performance. Children learned to play instruments not with the hope of becoming a “star” but because playing and singing were regarded as social assets. (James McCartney, born in Lancashire in 1902, told future Beatle Paul: “Learn to play the piano, son, and you’ll always get invited to parties.”) It was the age of sheet music and the pianoforte, when families would gather in living rooms to sing the latest popular songs. Collieries, mills, and factories, particularly in the north of England, formed bands and the Victorian emphasis on temperance and clean living resulted in parks, “recreation grounds,” and “pleasure gardens” furnished with often-ornate bandstands.
Teahouses and coffeehouses began as genteel rest spots where people could take light refreshments in a nonalcoholic environment. They were safe alternatives to public houses, and women, in particular, were drawn to them. During the first decade of the century, they began to offer afternoon “tea dances” and fashionable restaurants introduced dance floors. Prestigious hotels such as the Ritz and Savoy in London already had their own orchestras that would play during afternoon tea and evening drinks.
Collinson’s Café, Leeds, now a Jigsaw fashion store but with many origianl features retained.
Roof at the site of Collinson’s Café, Leeds, where Hartley played in the orchestra.
Collinson’s Café was a stylish property that opened in 1903 and would become a Leeds institution. A long narrow entrance area opened up into a large semicircle where the orchestra would have played. Above them was a balcony and above the balcony a tall glass dome. Staircases swept upward from the ground-floor level and all the windows were leaded with stained glass designs. The streaming light, colored glass, and music combined to produce an atmosphere of elegance and beauty.
Towns and cities considered their musical calendars to be indicators of sophistication, and seaside resorts used music to pull in visitors. Visitors might choose Eastbourne over Bournemouth or Southport over Blackpool simply because of the quality of music available in the hotels, bandstands, pavilions, and concert halls. Local councils would subsidize orchestras because of the value they added to their towns.
This all helped make music a viable profession. There was an increasing demand for players, teachers, conductors, and directors. A good versatile musician could move from opera house to tearoom and from concert hall to bandstand. Many of the great classical composers—including Mahler, Delius, Elgar, Ravel, Holst, and Debussy—were still writing, their latest works being premiered around the country and appreciated by the same people who liked Gilbert and Sullivan or the latest hits from the music hall.
It must have been while working at Collinson’s that Hartley met Maria Robinson, a tall dark-haired girl who lived with her family twelve miles away in Boston Spa. She was the eldest of four children, her father, Benjamin, being a woollen manufacturer in the Leeds suburb of Wortley. He’d become prosperous enough to buy St. Ives, a huge detached villa in Boston Spa that had once been an inn. Hartley became a regular visitor and he and Maria, along with her sister Margaret and Margaret’s boyfriend John Wood, would go for long walks in the surrounding countryside or take a rowing boat out on the River Wharfe.
By the time of his thirtieth
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