ABSTRACT
The second half of the seventeenth century witnessed a significant expansion in the number of clubs and societies in England, at first centred on London and subsequently spreading to provincial cities and towns. A range of associations flourished in the capital, encompassing chartered organizations such as the Royal Society and the Sons of the Clergy, county associations that held annual feasts, and more informal clubs holding frequent meetings and brought together by common interests such as literature or bell-ringing. 2 Music played a role in many of these organizations, either as an adornment to annual meetings, such as the anthems that graced the Festival of the Sons of the Clergy from the late 1690s, or as the primary focus of the organization, as was the case of the Society of Gentlemen Lovers of Musick, which met most years between 1683 and 1700, usually at Stationers’ Hall near Ludgate, for the performance of a musical ode in honour of St Cecilia. 3 Outside London, only Oxford sustained a significant 10number of voluntary associations, at least until the Glorious Revolution; and of these several music clubs are known, one of which was active as early as the Commonwealth period. 4 From 1688, increasing urbanization and personal wealth, especially amongst the middle classes, spurred what Peter Borsay has described as the ‘English urban renaissance’ in cities and towns throughout the provinces. 5 Here, too, music played a prominent role with a great diversity of music societies springing up, especially after the turn of the century. 6 These societies tended to be located in cathedral cities, and were supported by local clergy and professional musicians attached to the cathedral music. 7 It is somewhat surprising, therefore, to discover that what appears to be the first music club in England outside London or Oxford for which any details exist, is not found in a cathedral city such as Norwich or York, or in a spa town like Bath, which specialized in leisure activities, but rather in the market town of Stamford in Lincolnshire. Here, an organized group of ‘musical friends’, with regular meetings, articles, and subscriptions, and access to the latest in fashionable music, was active in the last decade of the seventeenth century.
