Advice on Locating Songwriters

Subject: Advice on Locating 1930s Songwriters
From: GUEST,Claire
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 06:25 AM

Hello

I wondered if anyone had any research advice for locating a songwriter called A. M. Booth published by a London music publishers in the 1930s. Does anyone have any archival tips to go about finding out more information? The expertise on here is always astonishing.

Many thanks for any advice,

Claire

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 11:33 AM

Can you fill out the information more? What do either or both of the initials "A. M" stand for? Do you have any song titles or fragments of lyrics? Any idea of the publishers involved? Was this a British songwriter in the UK, or from somewhere else?

I have been known to slip behind the university library paywall to do research, but a few more clues would help.

How is it that you are aware of this individual? What other tidbits can you offer?

My first through passes through Google Advanced search and Google Scholar have yielded nothing (there is a sociologist type by the name of Booth who takes up most of that bandwidth when using date constraints.)

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 04:03 PM

Thanks very much for wanting to know more.

I know that the songwriter was a woman, but I don't know her full name. She was the licensee along with her husband, B. Booth, of The Queen Anne pub in Great Hucklow, Derbyshire. I believe that one of the songs she wrote was called Some Day which was likely published in 1933 by a London publisher and had already published five songs with them previously. I discovered this information in the British Newspaper Archives - The Seaham Weekly News on 9th December, 1932.

Any direction you can point me in is much appreciated!

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 06:38 PM

Did you copy out the full article from the newspaper? Often times those online archives are fee-only and a casual searcher has to pass on the source or pay to use them. If you kept the content, transcribing it here would give our folks on that side of the pond more information to work with.

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 08:53 PM

The British Library catalogue lists a song by an M B Booth called My Darling. This may be the person referred to as the co-writer of this is given as Julian Wright, and the song you referred to as Some Day is credited in the catalogue to Julian Wright, 1937. (the refs are to the catalogue entries; I think they're permanent)

Mick

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 08:59 PM

(bte, I was only searching Scores for that)

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 17 Mar 26 - 09:36 PM

You can possibly find her full name from the 1939 register (assuming she was still at the pub!). Access is via a partner site and I think there is a free time period.

Mick

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: GUEST,Claire
Date: 18 Mar 26 - 09:09 AM

This is so interesting, thank you! I wonder if it can be the same person - looks like a trip to the BL may be in order.

I paid for the full article in the newspaper archives. The text is:

'Although she doesn't know a note of music, Mrs A. M. Booth of the Old Queen Anne Inn in Hucklow, Derbyshire, has had five songs published by a London firm of music publishers. She is writing a new song, entitled "Some Day".'

It makes sense there might be a co-writer of the score, therefore, if she couldn't write music. And it might also make sense that her initials were used to keep her more anonymous.

I couldn't find anything in the 1939 census but I may not be searching in the right way!

Thanks for your help!

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: GUEST,Oriel Wynn-Dawe
Date: 18 Mar 26 - 09:36 AM

Married women were often referred to by their husband's initials if 'Mrs' was used - Mary Smith married to John Smith would be 'Mrs. J. Smith' on envelopes, for instances. 'Mrs. M. Smith' would indicate a divorcee.

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Mar 26 - 10:29 AM

To orient myself for this query I had to pull up a map. Seaham, Durham, England is the stated place of this newspaper with an unknown publisher. Of the available years (in the online archive at least) the last batch, from 1898 to 1938, are where this announcement would have come from. The nearest large city is Newcastle upon Tyne. Does that sound correct? It looks like the newspaper collection was scanned in fairly recently, so someplace was holding onto physical copies.

Claire, are you in that region to do any on-the-ground visits to the nearest local library or history museum? A lot of places may still have archives with the old "vertical files" - folders of clippings that aren't digitized yet (an observation based upon library/museum work knowledge here in the US.)

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: Pappy Fiddle
Date: 18 Mar 26 - 09:57 PM

historical records: I checked Ancestry.com, there are a few Julian Wrights, but at least half are male, and most lived in the USA. I found one, Julian-J Wright, residing in 1937 in Holborn, England.

familysearch.org found nothing

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Mar 26 - 11:26 PM

The last search was for the location of the newspaper that published the remarks, for this dive into Google maps it was easy to find the Queen Anne Inn near Great Hucklow in Derbyshire. It still exists, has the same name, and it is very remote.
Main Street, Great Hucklow, Tideswell, Buxton SK17 8RF, UK
https://queenanneinn.co.uk/.
Beautiful area, but lots of old limestone quarries in the area.

It is quite a distance between Buxton and Seaham. One wonders why they would publish about someone so distant, what were the connections?

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 19 Mar 26 - 02:58 AM

There should marriage, census, death &c records to go with but, I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic for Google or Bing to play nice:

“These are the names associated with the Queen Anne (sometimes listed as the "Queen's Head") in various sources:
...
1935        Benjamin and Anne E. BOOTH”
[GENUKI: Great Hucklow, Derbyshire: ]


“Ann Booth
Birth: unknown
Death: Jul 1967
Burial: Dronfield Cemetery
Dronfield, North East Derbyshire District, Derbyshire, England
Plot: A. I 132
Aged 64 years
Buried on: 24 July 1967
Plot purchased by Benjamin Booth, Edge Tool Worker, 199 Chesterfield Road”

“Benjamin Booth
Birth: unknown
Death: unknown
Burial: Dronfield Cemetery
Dronfield, North East Derbyshire District, Derbyshire, England
Plot: A. I 132
Aged 82 years”
[Find-a-Grave]

That would make Anne c.1903-1967. Presumably also living at the 199 Chesterfield Road location. It's right adjacent the cemetery however, the middle initial “E” is not a match.

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: GUEST,Claire
Date: 19 Mar 26 - 07:36 AM

Gosh, amazing discovery - thank you!! It would definitely seem that she is our woman, from the information from Phil d'Conch. Thanks so much for looking into that for me!

Mick Pearce - the Julian Wright connection makes a lot of sense!! How exciting, I'm going to look at those songs right now, they could well be Mrs Booth's, couldn't they!!

With the Seaham connection, I think it's fairly arbitrary - the information about A. M. Booth (who we may now be able to fairly confidently call Ann), came from an article which included lots of snippets of information about interesting things from around Britain.

The Queen Anne pub is currently being sold and my family are from those parts. The pub is much loved by the community and has been there since 1624. I'm trying to find out things of interest about the place, and as a folk musician myself, I loved the idea of finding some of the songs written by the landlady - maybe even getting someone to perform it in there!

I am so grateful for all the help, thank you.

Subject: RE: Advice on Locating Songwriters
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Mar 26 - 10:54 AM

The same advice about vertical files at a university or museum applies to the Inn locality. Historical societies, museums, professional societies (to do with inn-keeping, perhaps?), universities all may have records that could help. Are there publicly accessed tax records? (Here in the US our buildings aren't so old, but going back to the early 20th century those records still reflect who owned various buildings). Might work to make more connections with people or places with information to mine. Paper trails (or microforms) may or may not be digitized.