Lord James’ Cabinet since his death 25 years earlier. Unfortunately, the key could not be found, but Sir Iain told Bill that if he could find a key to open it, he could have access to its contents. Sir Iain died soon after, but a year later Bill contacted Lady Moncreiffe, who invited him to try to open the cabinet. Armed with some old keys, Bill succeeded! It was packed with country dance books and sheet music, much of it dating back over 150 years.
Bill dancing the Eightsome Reel Ball at Blair Castle
Jimmie Hill describes a meeting he had recently with former Chairman, Bill Clement MBE, which raises interesting questions about our attitudes to research over the years. The irrepressible Bill Clement, now approaching his 90s, is one of that evershrinking group of dancers with first-hand knowledge of Jean Milligan and the early thinking that shaped our Society. A summons to his Edinburgh flat to examine an archive of dance instructions is not to be turned down! Through his army, Atholl Highlanders and RSCDS connections, Bill has had regular contact with members of the Scottish aristocracy. He played the pipes at the wedding of Peregrine Moncreiffe and also at the wedding of the daughter of the Duke of Buccleugh. Such contacts were common in the first 50 years of the Society’s history. Lord James Stewart Murray was the first President. The Countess of Elgin, Lady Sempill and the Duke of Montrose were all
22
www.rscds.org
In the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century music publishing was big business. The middle and upper classes provided a ready market as the ability to play a musical instrument was de rigueur. This resulted in a huge market for the latest in sheet music. Even within living memory for many of us, granny’s piano stool was full of books and sheets of piano music, much of it dance-related. As a mark of the exclusivity of such publishing in the early nineteenth century we need only look at the price. Sheet music, by our standards, was a luxury. One small pamphlet in Lord James’cabinet contained the tunes and instructions for six dances for 1820, including Madge Wildfire’s Strathspey and Reel. It cost one and sixpence – only seven and a half pence in today’s money, but taking inflation and average earnings into account, it was more like £50. Bill showed me Platts’s Collection of Original and Popular Dances, c. 1816, price one shilling per pamphlet or 10 shillings and sixpence for the 12 collected into a book – well over £40 today! Some people would buy the music simply to play in their own homes. Others bought it because the music often contained dance instructions.
involved. The link continues today through our Honorary Vice Presidents. From village hall to castle ballroom, country dancing in Scotland has always crossed boundaries of social class. It is and has always been part of the social life of the Scottish county families, reflected in the names of many dances: The Duke of Perth, Lady Glasgow, Lord Hume’s Reel, The Marquis of Lorne, etc. In 1983 Bill was invited to Easter Moncrieff, Perthshire, home of Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, then Vice-President of the Society, to show Sir Iain a short film of the Society’s 50th Anniversary Ball in the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms during which Sir Iain had danced Petronella with the Queen. Bill was shown a locked cabinet which had belonged to Lord James Stewart Murray, containing all his dance papers, which had lain unopened
The title page of the manuscript.
