Victorian Piano Stool A Bit Of History Alfred Philips Music Shop Kilburn High Road London 1844 - 1937.
Alfred Phillips
The first music shop in Kilburn was opened by Alfred Phillips about 1874 as ‘The Musical Box’ at 1 Bridge Crescent, near Oxford Road. In 1877 he had moved a short way up the High Road to 2 Manor Terrace, which was re-numbered as 43 Kilburn High Road. Alfred William Phillips was born in Whitechapel in 1844, the son of a grocer. Initially apprenticed to a linen draper, aged about 20 he got the job of manager at his grandfather Morley’s music shop in Clapham. He learned piano tuning there and started his own firm in 1868 as pianoforte and musical dealers in Greville Place. In the 1871 census he was living at 128 Boundary Road; ten years later he and his family were above the shop at Manor Terrace. Alfred married twice and had eleven children, several of whom went into the family music business. He was supplying an expanding market: the piano was a focus for entertainment in many Victorian households, and sheet music of the latest popular song was eagerly purchased.
An 1879 advert said his Kilburn shop had 15,000 items of sheet music in stock. It also pointed out:
Visitors from Town will see the shop on the left side of the road between the ‘Queen’s Arms’ and the L.N.W.R Kilburn station on the right. It is, however, only necessary to mention the name of the Establishment to the Conductor and the Omnibus will be stopped at the door.
Locals could rent a piano for 10 shillings a month. Alfred worked extremely hard and would visit homes and tune 5-6 pianos, even ten in a day, then return to run other parts of his business. One Xmas Eve he tuned 13!
In 1883, Alfred expanded into the music publishing firm of Phillips & Page in conjunction with Sydney Hubert Page, who like his partner, had previously worked as a piano tuner. The same year Alfred wrote to the composer Charles Gounod (most famous for his 1859 opera ‘Faust’), and obtained the copyright on several of his songs. This established the publishing company and when Gounod died in 1893, Phillips and Page traveled to Paris to secure the rights to Gounod’s remaining songs from his widow. Phillips was a successful composer and musical arranger and wrote a large number of hymns. He used many noms de plume, including ‘Sarakowski,’ for piano compositions and ‘Leigh Kingsmill’ for songs.
2012
Business did well and in 1890 Phillips bought Number 70 and 72 Kilburn High Road on the opposite side of the road, at the corner of West End Lane. He demolished the two existing shops and built one large warehouse with room for 70 pianos on the ground floor. The architect was E.A. Heffer and the builder H.B. Oldrey of Kilburn. Four composer’s heads (Bach, Handel, Mozart and Beethoven), are still visible at first floor level. At one time Phillips also had branches in Ealing, Harlesden and Harrow.
Alfred retired from the business in 1898. In ‘Who’s Who in Music’ he gave his recreations as; gardening, woodcarving, bowls, tennis, chess, sketching, fishing, swimming, and sailing. His partner Sydney Page continued the music publishing firm.
In a 1904 advert the Kilburn shop advertised it stocked the ‘Nicole Record’. Nicole Freres established a record company in 1903 at Great Saffron Hill. Their records had a cardboard base coated with celluloid. The weakness in construction compared with shellac records, led to bankruptcy in 1906. The company also made the Nicolephone talking machine, which Phillips also sold.
The Kilburn music shop, run by his sons continued under the name of Phillips until 1931. Alfred died in Bognor Regis in 1936, and left an estate of £19, 756, worth about a million pounds today.
Unknown record shop
My old friend, Dan Shackell’s mother, Violet Kray, recalls a shop which sold records in the 1930s and 1940s. This was near 182 Kilburn High Road, almost opposite the State Cinema. She remembers that her brother bought their first record there, a dance band version of ‘Moonlight and Roses’ for their windup gramophone.
All Clear
‘All Clear’ was a small shop which sold gramophones and records at 270 Belsize Road just before the War. But the shop does not seem to have been there very long, and the company was dissolved in April 1939.
4 сен 2024
