In our last blog post we learned there was a Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra in existence in the early 20th Century.  This came as a surprise to us, because we were under the impression the SPO was founded in 1945 and were preparing to celebrate our 80th Anniversary in 2025!  Once we found out a Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra existed as early as 1903, we set to work looking for more information about it.

The Musical Times proved to be a fantastic resource to us in researching this ‘old SPO’.  The first reference to the orchestra in print was in 1906 in a review of a concert in 1905, “the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra, formerly the Brincliffe Musical Society… conducted by J.H. Parkes.“.  So the earliest reference to the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra was 1905, before which the orchestra belonged to the Brincliffe Musical Society (whose first season was in 1884-1885(!).  So, perhaps the history of the orchestra really stretches back 140 years rather than 80?!

We followed regular references in The Musical Times through to 1915 when they stop suddenly.  In May of 1915  there is a review of a concert given at the Montgomery Hall (now the Montgomery Theatre on Surrey Street) on 23 March.

But the next reference to the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra in The Musical Times wasn’t until 1933!  Did the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra fold due to World War 1?

The article in The Musical Times (Apr. 1933) indicated that the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra gave a concert with the Firth Park Secondary School Choral Society under the baton of Prof. Shera.

Professor Frank Henry Shera (1882 – 1956) MA, MusM Cantab, FRCO, Hon ARCM was an organist, conductor and composer.  Born in Ecclesall, Sheffield in 1882 to Dr Shera, a classicist who was head of Wesley College and then of King Edwards.  Prof. Frank Shera was Dir. of Music at Malvern College from 1916-1928 before taking up the position of Chair of Music at the University of Sheffield, where he stayed until 1948 when he retired.

The University of Sheffield Archives holds a collection called The Shera Manuscripts (1928-1948) which was to be the next stop on our quest for information about our history.  However, from what we could see from the University Archives website, Prof. Shera founded the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra in late 1929 and served as its Conductor.  So perhaps the first iteration of the SPO did fold due to the First World War.

Stay tuned for A Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra Mystery: Part 3 where we learn more about Professor Shera and the 1929 iteration of the SPO!

Earlier this year it was brought to our attention that there was a mystery document we might be interested in the  Special Collections Library at the University of Leeds.  The document was a 4 page concert programme from a Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra concert at the ‘Albert Hall’ on Friday 23rd April, and ‘a portion of the programme for the Orchestra’s Senior Concert, April 21, 1903’.

This documents were curious to us because – as far as we knew – the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1945!  So in May we went on a little field trip over to West Yorkshire to see the document for ourselves and here’s what we found out:

As advised on the online catalogue, there was a clipping (from an SPO concert at the ‘Albert Hall’) had the date 21 April 1903 on it, but the 4 page programme wasn’t dated at all, it only said Friday April 23rd.

The 1903 date was a Tuesday, but it said “In grateful remembrance of… Ebenezer Prout The late Professor Prout conducted performances by this society of his 3rd Symphony and Triumphal March on the above date“.  So April 21 1903 was not the date of the programme – Ebenezer Prout died 5 December 1909, so the concert will have been after that – but the date of when Prout conducted the SPO, indicating that there was a Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra in existence as early as 1903.

So, how can we date the 4 page programme?  And where was the venue?

A quick Google told us more about the concert venue; The Albert Hall stood in Barker’s Pool on the corner of Burgess Street, Sheffield.  It opened as a concert hall on 15th December 1873, but was converted into a cinema after the First World War.  On 14th July 1937, following a showing of “Black Legion” starring Humphrey Bogart, a disastrous fire took hold of the building.  After World War II the land was bought by the Sheffield Corporation as the site for the new law courts but these were never built here, and in 1963 Cole Brothers Department store (a subsidiary of the John Lewis Partnership) was built on the Albert Hall site.  Read more here

As for the date – years when the 23rd April fell on a Friday in the early 20th Century left us with the following possibilities:  1909, 1915, 1920, 1926, 1937, 1943.

The programme also listed the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, and the Master Cutler as Patrons: Henry Kenyon Stephenson, DSO (elected in 1908), and Douglas Vickers (1908-1911).

So, it seems most likely that the concert was on 23 April 1909.

Reproduced with the permission of Special Collections, Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection, H-She-7.5 SHE

The clipping concert date remains unknown.

This was all incredibly exciting to learn, but it raised so many more questions than answers.

Keep your eye on our blog for Part 2 when we will take a deeper dive into the history of our orchestra.