Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra

Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra
Orchestra
Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra logo
Former name	‘Mr Thomas’s Band’, Fitzwilliam Street Philharmonic Society
Founded	1862
Principal conductor	Robert Guy
Website	www.huddersfield-phil.org.uk

The Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra is an amateur orchestra based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England.

In 1862 the first orchestra in Huddersfield to achieve lasting permanence was established by Rev JH Thomas, as ‘Mr Thomas’s Band’. It changed its name to the Fitzwilliam Street Philharmonic Society and then ultimately Huddersfield Philharmonic Orchestra.

S H Crowther, in An Orchestral Centenary (about the orchestra’s history) claimed 1871 as the date of creation of the ‘Huddersfield Phil’ and the orchestra duly celebrated its centenary in 1971. However R A Edwards later pointed out in And the Glory (his history of Huddersfield Choral Society) that this claim was inaccurate; and the society’s present archivist now confirms that it was shortly after Thomas’s death that the orchestra renamed itself the Huddersfield Philharmonic, giving its first concert under that name on 7 February 1885.

The Rev J H Thomas was a Cambridge graduate, expert linguist and accomplished musician, who was initially ordained into the Church of England but who later abandoned Anglicanism in favour of Unitarianism. In 1862 he came to Huddersfield as Unitarian minister in Fitzwilliam Street, where he remained until his death in 1884. According to the Huddersfield Examiner obituary notice,

‘he got a number of lads and young men around him. For five or six years he gave lessons gratuitously…. And bought many instruments for the band out of his small means…For the first few years the music of the band was exceedingly crude and often painfully out of tune; but the band was always an improving one…’

Among the Rev Thomas’s successors as conductors was John North (conductor also of the Choral and Glee & Madrigal Societies). He began his working life as a butcher’s errand boy at the age of nine. A vacancy soon arose for an errand boy at Joe Wood’s music shop (founded in 1850) and Johnny North was taken on. This was to transform his life completely. Encouraged by Joe Wood he became an adept pianist and reliable tuner; he also took up the cornet and developed into a fine violinist. In his short and crowded life (he died at the age of 39) he held various posts as organist; in addition to the Huddersfield Choral Society, he conducted the Holmfirth and Keighley Societies and also further afield.