This view of the Haworth Public Prize Band around the turn of the 20th century is especially notable for the dapper gentleman on the right - Handel Parker, composer of the hymn-tune "Deep Harmony".
Handel Parker had been a child prodigy, playing the flute in an Oxenhope Drum and Fife Band at the age of seven, and the Haworth Baptist harmonium at eight. He went on to be a choirmaster, conductor, composer and organist (including at Nassau Cathedral!), dying at Shipley in 1928, aged 74. The Haworth Band made use of his services - when they could afford him.
Band Committee minute-books for this period suggest limited resources.
J Hartley's cornet was silver-plated out of Band funds, but "any extra work doing to it be paid by J Hartley himself".
Overcoats had to be "overhauled and made serviceable", while J Binns was provided with a new cap, "to distinguish him from the rest of the Band". One bandsman had to get his clothes "altered to fit him".
A more stirring picture emerges from an Edwardian broadsheet with verses by one Mark R Peacock:
"Now kindly pay attention
To what I've got to say,
About the Band at Haworth,
How well each man can play,
It needs no introduction,
Each man knows well his part;
The sweetness of the music
Makes soft the hardest heart."
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