Music in the Boots
Company
Jesse Boot was
keen to promote music making and musical appreciation amongst
company employees, and within Nottingham generally.
In 1906, when a
campaign was launched to restore the Albert Hall, Jesse Boot
offered to spend £5,000 on a new organ, on condition that
the organist provided popular recitals every Saturday afternoon
with a fair number of seats not exceeding 3d each. Jesse Boot
funded the organist's salary for three years.
At Plaisaunce, the
Boot family's summer house, employees were invited to afternoon
entertainments, with music, dancing, athletics, swimming, and in
the evenings sometimes fireworks.
Jesse Boot provided a
set of instruments for the use of an employees' band, and the
PLAISAUNCE was formed. Florence Boot chose uniform - Lincoln
Green, light green collar and cuffs, and silver braid. Jesse
Boot arranged for the band to be coached by a professional
conductor, Mr Alex Owen, and in June 1908 the band made its
first venture into competitions at Lincoln. In 1909 the band won
first prize in the Junior Cup section in the National Brass Band
contest at Crystal Palace. Reformed after the First World War
and affiliated to the Scout Movement, the band had the honour of
being the first civilian band to play on Wellington Barracks
Square. The band later re-formed as the BEACON SILVER BAND, but
its playing days came to an untimely end when the instruments
were destroyed in the bombing of the Printing Department
building on Station Street in 1941.
Boots Choral Union, a
choir of 30 selected voices, was established around 1907, and
also performed at Plaisaunce. This re-formed following the First
World War, as the Male Voice Choir. The Girls Choir, started in
1913, developed into a Ladies Choir offering voice classes. The
two senior choirs gave annual combined concerts in the 1950s and
1960s, accompanied by the BOOTS ORCHESTRA.