Programme for a Concert in Cannon Hill Park

Description:Musical performances were regularly organised in the parks in the nineteenth century, and formed a major part of the entertainments programme arranged by the Parks Department. As with other leisure activities in parks, there were restrictions on performances on Sundays, with only sacred music permitted to be played, apart from in Cannon Hill Park, and Victoria Park, Small Heath, where no music at all was allowed on Sundays under the terms of Louisa Ann Ryland’s gift of land for these parks.^{<small>1</small>} In 1893, the Parks Committee made enquiries about arrangements made in other cities for musical performances in city parks, and decided to adopt a scheme similar to the one operating in Bradford, where local residents formed a musical committee to make arrangements for securing band performances, and the Corporation provided band stands, orchestras and band appliances. The Clef Club agreed to give twelve promenade concerts in the ‘principal parks’ of the city, and Northfield military band also agreed to give free performances.^{<small>2</small>}

Bandstands provided a focus for concerts, and seats and deckchairs were often available for hire. In Birmingham, as in other cities, a wide range of classical music was usually performed, and it is likely that local authorities saw the provision of music as having an educational function.^{<small>3</small>} As well as military and works bands, the Birmingham city police band seem to have provided much of the music in parks during the 1890s and 1900s. By 1914, the Parks Department had appointed a Music sub-committee to deal with the programme of concerts during the summer season, and to decide which parks would be most suitable for weekly concerts, apparently based on the demographic of the visitors. Kings Heath Park was chosen to host fortnightly concerts during the 1915 season, along with Sparkhill and Summerfield Parks, but concerts were to be discontinued at Adderley and Muntz Parks, and at recreation grounds, and were only to be held monthly at Cotteridge, Highgate, Selly Oak and Queen’s Park, Harborne. The police band and Guards bands were to be engaged to give concerts in ‘the better class parks only’, which included Calthorpe and Cannon Hill Parks.^{<small>4</small>}

In 1931, the Chief Constable complained that he would not allow the police band to play in future at several of the city’s recreation grounds, and objected to them playing at Kings Heath and Cotteridge Parks, on the grounds that few people attended, and additional police had to be present in the recreation grounds to prevent children throwing stones at the band, who restricted their programme to ragtime music for these performances.^{<small>5</small>} Despite this gloomy assessment, figures show that performances were routinely attracting at least five hundred people.^{<small>6</small>}

During the summer of 1940, the City Police Band was not available to play, because the members were on police duty. Other local bands, including the City Transport Military Band, were engaged for the summer season, which continued despite the cancellation of two concerts in Cannon Hill Park when it was closed to the public due to the presence of a delayed-action bomb, and the removal of chairs to air raid shelters.^{<small>7</small>} Musical performances were to become a key element of the wartime entertainment programme in parks as part of the Brighter Birmingham scheme.


<font color="#666633"><small>¹ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 22 July 1896 [BA&H: BCC AL/1/1/10]
² BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 26 June 1893 [BA&H: BCC AL/1/1/9]
³ Hazel Conway, Public Parks (Shire, 1996), p.50
⁴ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 7 December 1914 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/3]
⁵ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 2 February 1931 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/13]
⁶ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 24 October 1932 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/14]
⁷ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 7 October 1940 [BA&H: BCC 1 BO/1/1/21]</small></font>