The History of the Long Eaton Silver Prize Band

Harry Evetts

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As indicated by the advertisement (left), Harry Evetts was a successful conductor of many bands in the early years of the last century: his first success with Long Eaton Silver Band (the "Prize" was added to the name later) coming within two years of their founding in 1906. Although it was Mr. W. Halliwell that took the band to the first annual May Championship contest at Belle Vue, Manchester in 1922, all of the bands successes in its early years (27 first prizes, and 19 second prizes within thirty years) was under this fine musician: the highlight being the winning of the Cassell’s Saturday Journal Shield as Second Section Champions in 1927.

A later major success was in winning the "Russell" Shield by finishing 2^nd in the second section of the 12^th Annual Leicester Brass Band Festival at the Lancaster Hall on March 2^nd 1935 (the first prize and the "Markham Memorial" Shield were awarded to Rugby Town). The Frank Winfield Archives not only contains the souvenir programme and bandsman's ticket from this contest, but a press cutting reporting the adjudicator's comments, together with a picture of the conductor (below). The test piece, Mercandante arr. H. Rounds, featured in a number of subsequent concerts.

The Frank Winfield Archives contains many concert and contest programmes from the 1920s and 1930s. Many featured the bands principal cornet player Tommy Henton (who is listed as the band's bandmaster conductor in the Long Eaton Year Book of 1938-9) playing solos such as "Selected", "My Dreams" (Tosti), "Because" (Guy d'Hardelot), "! Dry Those Tears" (Del Riego), "I'll Sing Thee Songs of Araby" (Clay) and "The Lost Chord" (Sullivan). Other soloists were Frank Winfield (Trombone) playing "The Trumpeter", W. Wheatley (Euphonium) playing "Selected", "The Village Blacksmith" (Weiss), and "The Diver" (Loder). After the war, Arthur Marshall (Euphonium) featured on "The Cavalier" (Sutton) (now played by today's principal Euphonium player, Carl Ramplin), and J. Arden (Horn) playing "The Rose of Tralee" (Glover).

After the war, the band continued to find some success under Harry Evetts, winning first prize at Loughborough on Eric Ball's Divertimento on July 1st 1948, and second prize in the second section at West Bromwich Horticultural Show's third annual Brass Band Contest on 4th September 1948 (Burselm Co-operative Prize Band won).