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The Gender of Subscribers to Eighteenth-Century Music Publications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2019

Simon D. I. Fleming*
Affiliation:
Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, Darlington, UK Music Department,Durham University, Durham, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: s.d.i.fleming@durham.ac.uk

Abstract

One of the most important and valuable resources available to researchers of eighteenth-century social history are the lists of subscribers that were attached to a wide variety of publications. Yet, the study of this type of resource remains one of the areas most neglected by academics. These lists shed considerable light on the nature of those who subscribed to music, including their social status, place of employment, residence, and musical interests. They naturally also provide details as to the gender of individual subscribers.

As expected, subscribers to most musical publications were male, but the situation changed considerably as the century progressed, with more females subscribing to the latest works by the early nineteenth century. There was also a marked difference in the proportion of male and female subscribers between works issued in the capital cities of London and Edinburgh and those written for different genres. Female subscribers also appear on lists to works that they would not ordinarily be permitted to play. Ultimately, a broad analysis of a large number of subscription lists not only provides a greater insight into the social and economic changes that took place in Britain over the course of the eighteenth century, but also reveals the types of music that were favoured by the members of each gender.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 The Royal Musical Association

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References

1 Simon Fleming, ‘Avison and his Subscribers: Musical Networking in Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, 49 (2018), 21–49; David Hunter and Rose Mason, ‘Supporting Handel Through Subscription to Publications: The Lists of Rodelinda and Faramondo Compared’, Notes, 56 (1999), 27–93; Margaret Seares, ‘The Composer and the Subscriber: A Case Study from the 18th Century’, Early Music, 39 (2011), 65–78; Michael Talbot, ‘What Lists of Subscribers Can Tell Us: The Cases of Giacob Basevi Cervetto's Opp. 1 and 2’, De Musica Disserenda, 10 (2014), 121–39; Michael Kassler, ‘The Bachists of 1810: Subscribers to the Wesley/Horn Edition of the “48”’, The English Bach Awakening, ed. Michael Kassler (London, 2016), 315–40.

2 Peter Wallis and Francis Robinson, Book Subscription Lists: A Revised Guide (Newcastle, 1975); Peter Wallis and Ruth Wallis, Book Subscription Lists: Extended Supplement to the Revised Guide (Newcastle, 1996). I am grateful to Elias Mazzucco, who allowed me to view the British Library's card index. I tend to become aware of new lists through a variety of means, but more often than not through online searches. For example, at the time of writing this article, I became aware of a list, hitherto unknown to me, due to its advertisement on the internet auction site eBay. This list was attached to James Brooks, Twelve English Ballads (Figure 3).

3 I would be pleased to hear from anyone who has come across a list not included in Appendix B or is aware of a variant list with a different number of subscriptions.

4 The copy consulted is in the author's collection, known as the ‘Simon D. I. Fleming Music Collection’, held by the Palace Green Library at Durham. The catalogue reference for this book is GB-DRu: Fleming 327. Catalogue references to the copies consulted later in this article are given, without further comment, in subsequent footnotes. A catalogue of the manuscripts in the Simon D. I. Fleming Music Collection can be viewed at http://reed.dur.ac.uk/xtf/view?docId=ark/32150_s1fq977t890.xml&toc.id=.

5 GB-NOu: PZ6.2.E6. This song was referred to in the ‘Twelfth Conversation’. See Harriet English, Conversations and Amusing Tales (London, 1799), 371.

6 GB-Lbl: a.9.b.(4.). For Thomas Maguire's Twelve Favorite Waltzes (Dublin, c.1815), the subscribers were largely grouped by gender with all but one female subscriber (who was a member of the aristocracy) appearing at the end of the list. GB-Lbl: g.352.mm.(22.).

7 This happened with the first and second issues of Charles Avison's op. 9 concertos, book 1, where the first issue has several names added by hand; these names were incorporated into the second issue. In addition, Michael Kassler identified three variant lists that accompanied the first pressing of Samuel Wesley and Charles Frederick Horn's edition of J. S. Bach's Preludes and Fugues, book 1; one has no manuscript additions, the second, six, and a third, eight. See Kassler, ‘The Bachists of 1810’, 316.

8 GB-DRu: Fleming a.38. Although grouping subscribers together by place is not unusual, I have found it to be a rarity in music. Hunter and Mason ‘Supporting Handel Through Subscription to Publications’, 34.

10 This practice is evident from the writings of Jane Austen. For instance, in Sense and Sensibility, the eldest of the Dashwood daughters is referred to as ‘Miss Dashwood’ while her younger sisters are known by their Christian names.

11 Michael Talbot observed that the engraver of the list that was attached to Giacob Cervetto's op. 2 ‘found his copy text hard to decipher, since the names are littered with garbled readings’. Talbot, ‘What Lists of Subscribers Can Tell Us’, 130.

12 Henry Heron added a note to the end of the subscription list to his Ten Volentaries [sic] (London, c.1765) that ‘At the request of many of my Subscribers their names are not Printed’ GB-Lbl: d.210.(2.).

13 For Appendix B, I distinguish between the number of subscribers and the number of subscriptions received. Most authors, in counting the number of subscribers in any individual list, will refer to the latter.

14 Publishers often subscribed to new works to sell in their shops and, for that reason, frequently subscribed to multiple copies. This has previously been observed by Kassler, ‘The Bachists of 1810’, 318.

15 Hugh Reid observed that ‘it wasn't until the eighteenth century … [that] the practice [of issuing works by subscription] really began to grow’. He reported that before 1701, ‘fewer than 100 books [were] published by subscription. By 1801 estimates place the number between 2000 and 3000.’ See Hugh Reid, The Nature and Uses of Eighteenth-Century Book Subscription Lists (Lewiston, 2010), 15.

16 These dates were ascertained with the aid of COPAC. Multi-volume collections, such as John Garth's edition of Marcello's Psalms, were issued over a number of years, but it was the year volume one was published (1757) that appears on all the title pages. In this instance and in others, the given year has been retained.

17 A wide range of books on a diverse range of other subjects was also published by subscription; these include books on mathematics, science and even works of fiction. See, for example, Ruth Wallis and Peter Wallis, ‘Female Philomaths’, Historia Mathematica, 7 (1980), 57–64; P. D. Garside, ‘Jane Austen and Subscription Fiction’, Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies, 10 (1987), 175–88.

18 GB-DRc: B9.

19 GB-DRu: Fleming 534; Hunter and Mason ‘Supporting Handel Through Subscription to Publications’, 30; Talbot, ‘What Lists of Subscribers Can Tell Us’, 123.

20 This appears to have been the case with Charles Avison's opp. 6 and 8 keyboard sonatas, the publication of which was probably financed by Avison himself. See Fleming, ‘Avison and his Subscribers’, 27–8.

21 GB-DRu: Fleming b.100. Michael Talbot observed that, certainly in regard to music, a discount was often offered to subscribers. He did, however, wonder as to whether the notion of ‘saving money could be regarded as sitting uncomfortably with the idea of patronage’. Talbot, ‘What Lists of Subscribers Can Tell Us’, 123.

22 This has already been observed in the case of Charles Avison where, of the 91 musicians who subscribed to Avison's published works, Avison subscribed to works by 13 of them. See Fleming, ‘Avison and his Subscribers’, 34.

23 Oracle and Public Advertiser, 21 March 1798.

24 This was certainly true in the case of Pixell who, as well as being a minor canon at Durham Cathedral, was also the vicar at Edgbaston, curate of Moseley, Birmingham, and rector of Dalton-le-Dale, Country Durham. With the addition of any extra gifts that he may have received, his combined income would have made Pixell a wealthy man. See Fleming, ‘The Howgill Family’, 74, 76–7.

25 Although rare, there are examples of ladies promoting concerts. Ann Ford, for instance, organized subscription concerts, but very much against her parents’ wishes. Cyril Ehrlich, The Music Profession in Britain Since the Eighteenth Century: A Social History (Oxford, 1985), 7.

26 There were exceptions. For instance, Abigail Gawthern reported on several concerts she attended at which married women sang. The performers she heard included Gertrud Mara, Elizabeth Billington, Angelica Catalani, Mrs Biancha and a Mrs Chapman. Adrian Henstock, ed., The Diary of Abigail Gawthern of Nottingham 1751–1810 (Nottingham, 1980), 93, 98.

27 Stamford Mercury, 1 March 1816.

28 John Wilson, ed., Roger North on Music (London, 1959), 16; Richard Leppert, Music and Image (Cambridge, 1993), 107, 110.

29 John Berkenhout, A Volume of Letters from Dr. Berkenhout to his Son at the University (Cambridge, 1790), 189.

30 Wilson, Roger North on Music, 16; Leppert, Music and Image, 147.

31 Leppert, Music and Image, 147.

32 Simon D. I. Fleming, ‘The Howgill Family: A Dynasty of Musicians from Georgian Whitehaven’, Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 10 (2013), 74.

33 Deborah Rohr, The Careers of British Musicians 1750–1850: A Profession of Artisans (Cambridge, 2001), 88; Donovan Dawe, Organists of the City of London 1666–1850 ([London?] 1983), 112.

34 Leppert, Music and Image, 122, 150.

35 John Essex, The Young Ladies Conduct: or, Rules for Education (London, 1722), 84–5.

36 Leppert, Music and Image, 51.

37 Essex, The Young Ladies Conduct, 85.

38 Augusta Llanover, ed., The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, 3 vols (London, 1861), i, 435.

39 Leppert, Music and Image, 29.

40 Leppert, Music and Image, 44; Ian Woodfield, Music of the Raj: A Social and Economic History of Music in Late Eighteenth-Century Anglo-Indian Society (Oxford, 2005), 209.

41 Allatson Burgh, Anecdotes of Music, Historical and Biographical, 3 vols (London, 1814), i, v–vii.

42 Maria Edgeworth and Richard Edgeworth, Practical Education, 3 vols (London, 2nd edn, 1801), iii, 16–18.

43 Edward Miller, Institutes of Music, or Easy Instructions for the Harpsichord (London, [1771]), 1–3.

44 Of the 557 lists examined, in 493 (89%) the majority of subscribers were men and, of them, 19 had no female subscribers at all.

45 There is certainly evidence that the head of a household would subscribe to a local society or group, with their payment covering that of his wife and children. Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (London, 1988), 210, 329, 432. Under common law, on marriage all of a woman's liquid property passed into the ownership of her husband, which made unmarried wealthy women a target for fortune hunters.

46 The fact that most of the publication years given in Appendix B are not given on the work and only approximate makes it difficult to say in any particular year the exact proportion of subscribers there were from each gender. By grouping the data into 20-year blocks, any errors in the dating process are less pronounced.

47 Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, 432.

48 GB-Lbl: f.83.

49 This figure does not include oratorios.

50 William C. Smith and Charles Humphries, A Bibliography of the Musical Works Published by the Firm of John Walsh during the years 1721–1766 (London, 1968).

52 Hunter and Mason, ‘Supporting Handel Through Subscription to Publications’, 7. A few works by Handel, which were reissued by the same or a different publisher, utilized the same subscription lists; this is somewhat surprising as one might have expected the number of subscribers to increase between editions.

53 Hunter and Mason also observed that the number of subscribers Handel received was significantly lower than other contemporary works. Hunter and Mason, ‘Supporting Handel Through Subscription to Publications’, 35.

54 It had been the aim of this survey to examine all the countries that came to form the United Kingdom but the paucity of examples from Wales and Ireland have made this difficult, so the focus of this article is on England and Scotland alone.

55 The ‘Musical Choir’ at Dartmouth College subscribed to three copies of Samuel Holyoke's The Columbian Repository (1809).

56 GB-Lbl: H.3033.

57 Ian Woodfield has demonstrated that there was a vibrant music scene in British India, with both private and public concerts public taking place. The author of this book from which the subscription data is derived, William Bird, promoted two series’ of six subscription concerts at Calcutta in 1789. The music performed at these events reflects what was popular in Britain at the time. Woodfield, Music of the Raj, 143–4, 248–9.

58 As this percentage only includes works where London is given on the title page as the place of publication, the proportion is in reality going to be higher. The dominance of London as a British centre for music publication has already been observed by Frank Kidson in British Music Publishers, Printers and Engravers (New York, 1900, 1967 reprint) where, of the 229 pages, 166 (72%) are devoted to London. The second biggest centre for music publication, Edinburgh, only accounts for 24 pages (10%).

59 Rosalind Carr, Gender and Enlightenment Culture in Eighteenth-Century Scotland (Edinburgh, 2014), 6.

60 Ibid., 75–6.

61 Ibid., 86–8, 95.

62 http://ks.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usimg/3/30/IMSLP176915-PMLP311118-Circus_Tunes_reels_strathspeys_nla.aus-vn2696244-p.pdf; GB-Gu: Sp Coll Ca12-x.29. Of the 22 works published in Edinburgh and examined in this study, ten (45%) have more female subscribers then male.

63 Kidson, British Music Publishers, 200–1.

64 Ibid., 177–201.

65 Thomas Ebdon, Rothsay & Caithness Fencibles (Edinburgh, c.1795); John Friend, Hymn for Sunday Morning (Edinburgh, c.1805); Charles Stanley, A Favorite Song on Sir John Jervis's Victory (Edinburgh, c.1797); Thomas Hawdon, A Favorite Rondo (Edinburgh, c.1780); Thomas Thompson, Lira, Lira, La (Edinburgh, c.1797).

66 Kim Baston, ‘Harlequin Highlander: Spectacular Geographies at the Edinburgh Equestrian Circus, 1790–1800’, Early Popular Visual Culture, 12 (2014), 283.

67 The London-based company, an offshoot of that in Edinburgh, was run by Domenico Corri. Kidson, British Music Publishers, 33.

68 Michael Kelly, Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, 2 vols (London: Henry Colburn, 1826), ii, 74; David Johnson, Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1972), 58; Peter Ward Jones, Rachel E. Cowgill, J. Bunker Clark, and Nathan Buckner, ‘Corri Family’, Grove Music Online (12 May 2018).

69 GB-Lbl: g.271.f.(1.)

70 Watlen had been a clerk at Corri and Co. before he set up his own business a few doors away from his former employer, and presumably used his position to poach both students and subscribers. Watlen could certainly be underhand in his dealings, as it appears that he had been selling Broadwood pianos, pretending to be an official seller. However, Broadwood already had two official sellers in Edinburgh and had earlier decided not to work with Watlen. Once the issue became public, it was damaging for Watlen, and is probably why he went bankrupt. Caledonian Mercury, 15 February 1798, 20 August 1798, 4 October 1800. See also John Leonard Cranmer, ‘Concert Life and the Music Trade in Edinburgh c.1780–c.1830’ (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 1991), 240, 284–5.

72 Valentine's advertisements, however, indicate that he did take both male and female students. See Karl Kroeger, ‘John Valentine: Eighteenth-Century Music Master in the English Midlands’, Notes, 44: 3, 451, 1988.

74 http://hz.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/c/c2/IMSLP372051-PMLP600860-Valentine_30_psalm_tunes_1784.pdf; I am grateful to Martin Perkins who provided me with a copy of the subscription list to Valentine's Epithalamium.

75 Valentine's Eight Easy Symphonies were dedicated to ‘all Junior Performers and Musical Societies’. In addition, among his subscribers can be found various Leicester-based musical groups, including both the choir and catch-club attached to St Margaret's Church and the Musical Society at All Saints. Valentine was probably closely associated with all these organizations.

76 Elizabeth Cary Ford, ‘The Flute in Musical Life in Eighteenth-Century Scotland’ (PhD diss., University of Glasgow, 2016), 71; Helen Goodwill, ‘The Musical Involvement of the Landed Classes in Eastern Scotland, 1685–1760’ (PhD diss., University of Edinburgh, 2000), 45, 58.

77 Cosmo Innes, Sketches of Early Scotch History and Social Progress (Edinburgh, 1861), 483. Roger Williams also believed, after examining the music library at Castle Fraser, near Aberdeen, that Elyza Fraser (1734–1814) and her lifelong companion, Mary Bristow, ‘seemed to have played violin and keyboard’. Certainly their collection contains a good number of keyboard concertos and sonatas with string accompaniments. Roger B. Fraser, Catalogue of the Castle Fraser Music Collection (Aberdeen, 1994), xi, 3–35.

78 Johnson, Music and Society in Lowland Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, 26–7.

79 GB-Lbl: g.302.(1.). I am grateful to Martin Perkins who provided me with a copy of this list.

80 Bury and Norwich Post, 14 April 1847; Simon Fleming, ‘The Myth of the Forgotten Composer: The Posthumous Reputation of Charles Avison’, Early Music, 44 (February 2016), 105–17.

81 GB-DRc: M184.

82 The subscription list to Avison's op. 9, set 2, is at GB-Lbl: g.256.h. I am grateful to Timothy Rishton, who provided me with copies of the subscription lists attached to Chilton's published works. The character of Chilcot's concertos is discussed in Timothy J. Rishton, ‘The Eighteenth-Century British Keyboard Concerto After Handel’, Aspects of Keyboard Music: Essays in Honour of Susi Jeans, ed. Robert Judd (Oxford, 1992), 126–8. See also, Tim Rishton, ‘Chilcot, Thomas’, Grove Music Online, 12 May 2018. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000005581. The Dean of Durham, Spencer Cowper (1713–44), visited Bath in 1745. He wrote that the ‘best musician they have is Chilcot the Organist, who indeed plays delightfully, and upon one of the finest organs I ever heard’. Edward Hughes, ed., Letters of Spencer Cowper Dean of Durham 1746–74 (Durham, 1956), 42.

83 GB-DRu: Fleming 30.

84 Talbot has already observed that female subscribers to the works produced by Giacob Cervetto may not have utilized this music themselves. Talbot, ‘What Lists of Subscribers Can Tell Us’, 129, 131.

85 Michael Cole, ‘Transition from Harpsichord to Pianoforte – the Important Rôle of Women’, paper given at Kloster Michaelstein in 2002, 1–8. I am grateful to Michael Cole who kindly provided a copy of his paper.

86 Published in London.

87 GB-Lbl: e.5.(5.). Andrew Abbott and John Whittle, The Organs and Organists of St. Mary's Church Nottingham (Nottingham, 1993), 74–6; Henstock, The Diary of Abigail Gawthern of Nottingham 1751 –1810, 27. See also Rosemary Evans, ‘Music in Eighteenth-Century Nottingham’ (MA diss., University of Loughborough, 1983).

88 Henstock, The Diary of Abigail Gawthern of Nottingham 1751 –1810, 13.

89 The list includes the musicians John Alcock, Edmund Ayrton of Southwell, William Boulton of Leicester, William Boyce, John Camidge of York, John Cowper of Lincoln, William Denby of Derby, Mr Doubleday of St Neots, John Garth of Durham, Anthony Greatorex of North-Wingfield, Henry Hargrave of Nottingham, one of the Kirkman family of harpsichord makers, Thomas Layland of Chesterfield, Bailey Marley of Hull, Edward Miller of Doncaster, John Scamardine of Grantham, Francis Sharp of Stamford, the organ builder John Snetzler, Andrew Strother of Grantham, William Tireman of Cambridge, Thomas Vandernan of the Chapel Royal, Mr Vercal and Thomas Weeley of Lincoln, John Wainwright of Manchester and George Wright of Peterborough.

90 Fleming, ‘Avison and his Subscribers’, 31.

91 Several early eighteenth-century writers, including Arthur Bedford (1668–1745), spoke out against the use of secular sounding organ music. This argument was still festering later in the century, as can be seen in the case of the organist at St Mary's, Truro, Charles Bennett, who was regularly reprimanded by the vicar for playing ‘jig voluntaries’. Arthur Bedford, The Great Abuse of Musick (London, 1711), 238; Richard McGrady, Music and Musicians in Early Nineteenth-Century Cornwall (Exeter, 1991), 114. See also Nicholas Temperley, Studies in English Church Music, 1550–1900 (Aldershot, 2009), 203.

92 GB-Lbl: g.198.(5.).

94 Rita Benton, ‘Pleyel (i)’, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, (accessed May 28, 2017) http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/21940pg1. Komlós described Pleyel as having ‘a somewhat impersonal style, devoid of a strong character; a style that sought to please and to entertain’. Katalin Komlós, Fortepianos and their Music (Oxford, 2001), 101.

95 Gerald Gifford, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music Collection at Burghley House, Stamford (Aldershot, 2002), 66, 286–7, 419–20. John Marsh also knew Pleyel's quartets. See Brian Robins, ed., The John Marsh Journals: The Life and Times of a Gentleman Composer, 2nd revised edition, vol. 1 (Hillsdale, 2011), 447, 516.

96 Shirley Pargeter, A Catalogue of the Library at Tatton Park, Knutsford, Cheshire (Chester, 1977), 298–9; Ian Gammie and Derek McCulloch, Jane Austen's Music (St Albans, 2013), 17, 20–1; Simon D. I. Fleming, ‘The Music Collection Belonging to Tryphena Wynne Pendarves’, A Handbook for Studies in 18th-Century English Music (London, 2017), xxi, 40–1, 69.

97 Miller, Institutes of Music, 2.

98 Leppert, Music and Image, 68.

99 Musical works, not originally intended for instruction, were also acquired for educational purposes. For instance, Kassler pointed out a Mrs Oom, who purchased multiple copies of Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues presumably to sell to her students. Kassler, ‘The Bachists of 1810’, 325.

100 GB-Lbl: g.500.(6.).

101 A transcript of this subscription list was kindly provided by Michael Talbot.

102 Talbot, ‘What Lists of Subscribers Can Tell Us’, 129, 131.

103 Leppert, Music and Image, 71.

104 Malcolm Elwin, The Noels and The Milbankes: Their Letters for Twenty-Five Years 1767–1792 (London, 1967), 139. Abigail Gawthern also attended a large number of such events, recording whom she had danced with in her diary. Henstock, The Diary of Abigail Gawthern of Nottingham 1751 –1810, passim.

105 Leppert, Music and Image, 80. For a detailed account of dancing in Bath see Trevor Fawcett, ‘Dance and Teachers of Dance in Eighteenth Century Bath’, Bath History, 2 (1988), 27–48.

106 Leppert, Music and Image, 81.

107 Ibid., 81.

108 See, for example, those held in Stamford, Lincolnshire. Simon Fleming, ‘Music and Concert Promotion in Georgian Stamford’, The Consort, 73 (2017), 61–83.

109 GB-DRc: E66, E67, E69. For more on Boyce's Cathedral Music, see H. Diack Johnstone, ‘The Genesis of Boyce's ‘Cathedral Music’’, Music & Letters, 56 (1975), 26–40.

110 Johnstone, ‘The Genesis of Boyce's “Cathedral Music”’, 32.

111 Stanley Sadie, ‘Music in the Home II’, Music in Britain, The Eighteenth Century, eds. H. Diack Johnston and Roger Fiske (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 322–3.

112 Ibid., 322–3; Emanuel Rubin, The English Glee in the Reign of George III (Warren, 2003), 73. Rubin observed that the ‘two leading music clubs in London’, the Noblemen and Gentlemen's Catch Club and the Madrigal Society complemented each other. While ‘the Catch Club sought to generate new English music in the currently popular style … the Madrigal Society held to its mission of preserving the old.’ Nevertheless, he also observed that Tudor madrigals were commonly included in collections of more modern works, such as glees; he found the most popular of these Tudor composers were Thomas Morley, Thomas Ford, John Wilbye and Michael Este. Rubin, The English Glee in the Reign of George III, 72, 98–9.

113 Pargeter, A Catalogue of the Library at Tatton Park, 306.

114 GB-DRu: Fleming 20.

115 GB-DRu: Fleming 185, 187; GB-DRc: Men's Music Library, Copy 7; GB-NOu: Oversize M1579 MOR.

116 Women are known to have sung in some church choirs, such as Ann Howgill at Whitehaven. The choirs of both the Hey and Shaw chapels in Lancashire had also included women since the 1750s, and the Halifax 1766 musical festival used female sopranos rather than boy trebles. See Fleming, ‘The Howgill Family’, 68, and Rachel Cowgill, ‘Disputing Choruses in 1760s Halifax: Joah Bates, William Herschel, and the Messiah Club’, Music in the British Provinces, 1690–1914, eds. Rachel Cowgill and Peter Holman (Aldershot, 2007), 104–5.

117 14.8% is also the proportion of female subscribers for all sacred vocal works examined.

119 GB-Lbl: H.1771.ss.(8.). I am grateful to Martin Perkins, who provided me with a copy of this list.

120 GB-Lbl: R.M.13.e.23.

121 Viewed on ECCO.

122 GB-DRu: Fleming a.76; Fraternal Melody was viewed on ECCO. For more information on female involvement with freemasonry in Britain at this time, see the Journal for Research into Freemasonry and Fraternalism, 4 (2013) which focuses is on ‘Women and Freemasonry’. I am grateful to Andrew Pink for making me aware of this source.

123 For more on the performance of catches and glees see Brian Robins, Catch and Glee Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (Woodbridge, 2006) and Rubin, The English Glee in the Reign of George III.

124 This has already been observed by Robins, Catch and Glee Culture in Eighteenth-Century England, 104, and Rubin, The English Glee in the Reign of George III, 151–6.

125 Elwin, The Noels and The Milbankes, 248.

126 Robins, The John Marsh Journals, 533.

127 Leena Asha Rana, ‘Music and Elite Identity in the English Country House, c.1790–1840’ (PhD diss., University of Southampton, 2012), 210.

128 DRu: Fleming b.38. Glees for performance, at least in part by women, were published in the eighteenth century; one of the earliest collections aimed at the female performer was Samuel Webbe's 1764 collection, The Ladies Catch-Book. See Rubin, The English Glee in the Reign of George III, 154.

129 GB-Lbl: E.207.c.(5.).

130 Published in London.

131 Ford, ‘The Flute in Musical Life in Eighteenth-Century Scotland’, 74–80.

132 Quoted from Ford, ‘The Flute in Musical Life in Eighteenth-Century Scotland’, 79.

133 Ehrlich, The Music Profession in Britain Since the Eighteenth Century, 15; Helena Whitbread, ed., I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister 1791–1840 (New York, 1992), xxiii, 1, 17, 304–5.

135 GB-Lbl: e.174.k.(1.).

136 GB-DRu: Fleming 9.