The Stalybridge Band

Based in Tameside. Greater Manchester. England. UK. The oldest brass band in the world – the Stalybridge Band was formed in 1809, with Thomas Avison, a clarinettist as the first conductor. The band room was in the garret of a shoe shop kept by Avison’s father. By the end of 1814, the band numbered nineteen players with a mixture of wood-wind and brass. The first public engagement being 24th June, 1815 at the procession and foundation stone laying of the Chapel Street Sunday Schools, Stalybridge, Cheshire. The event was on the Saturday following the battle of Waterloo which was fought on Sunday 18th June, 1815. On Easter Monday, 1816, the Band numbered twenty-one performers and played in a new sky-blue uniform in an Oddfellows’ procession at Glossop, Derbyshire. The Stalybridge Band was involve in the Manchester ‘Peterloo Massacre’ on January 14th 1819, and hastily ‘beat the retreat’ from the battle. They had been booked to play for a political meeting which turned into the massacre. At a contest in Woverhampton on Easter Monday, 1859 the Band took first prize, the value being £15. Thomas Avison retired in about 1832 and the Band had several conductors between then and 1868 when Alexander Owen joined and conducted the Stalybridge Band for the first time at Burnley in 1868. The Band introduced him to contesting, in which he was to have so many remarkable successes. In the Stalybridge Band room to this day is the cornet and baton he won at Mossley in 1874. By 1880, John Gladney – later to be known as the ‘Father of Brass Bands’ – was conductor at Stalybridge. He was a member of the Halle Orchestra and had only been with the Stalybridge Band three weeks when they were within an ace of winning first prize at Belle Vue, Manchester. From 1957 until 1964, Sam Sykes was the conductor. It was he who wrote the Band’s signature march ‘Ridgehill’ – named after a district in the town of Stalybridge. Within three years, Sam Sykes took the band from being virtually a learner’s class to winning a prize at Mancester’s Belle Vue contest. Please click on the image below to learn more about the Whit Friday Brass Band competitions.