This chapter outlines the history of musicians’ representative organisations before the formation of the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union in 1893. It traces developments from the fourteenth century to the late nineteenth, examining the various fraternities, brotherhood guilds and societies which were formed. Issues of protectionism, benevolence and organisation are raised. The moves towards a re trade unionism are outlined in the context of the growth of new unionism. The formation of the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union (AMU) and thee rival London Orchestral Association (LOA) are outlined.

This chapter covers the period from the election of General Scard as General Secretary through to his replacement by Derek Kay and the internal machinations which ended with John Smith being elected General Secretary in 2002. Reorganisation of the UK’s orchestras is reported. Internal restructuring of the Union is noted and problems around the 2000 election for General Secretary are reported.

This chapter outlines the early history of the Amalgamated Musicians’ Union (AMU) and the work of its first General Secretary, Joseph Bevir (“Joe”) Williams. It illustrates the types of work undertaken by musicians in the last nineteenth and early twentieth century. Debates about whether musicians’ collective interests are best served by a trade union or a professional association are outlined. The key issues facing the Union in its early days are discussed including competition from military bands and European immigrant musicians, recruitment, strikes, the Union’s penchant for litigation, its efforts to communicate with members and its political lobbying and campaigning. The effect of the First World War on the AMU and musical employment is also outlineds.

This chapter explores the genesis, history and travels of three songs, charting their movements across the radical Anglophone world and considering their functions and meanings in different local settings. The three songs are Rouget de Lisle's war hymn the Marseillaise, Robert Burns's Scots ballad John Anderson my Jo and Chartist leader Ernest Jones's labour song Song of the 'Lower Classes'. The different functions of these three songs in radical culture were produced in part by the different balance between words and music. In different ways these three songs contribute to an understanding of the importance of song and singing in nineteenth-century demotic politics and the role of print and the oral tradition in transmitting and sustaining a radical and reformist culture.

The sounds of liberty during the long nineteenth century offer much for the student of popular politics across an inter-colonial and transnational world. For the student of radicalism and reform in the Anglophone world the early twenty-first century bipartisan construction can be seen as part of a continuum that is very helpful when seeking to understand the ground rules of British politics during the long nineteenth century. The book examines songs and looks at the place of music in the public sphere wherein people (individually and collectively) made music as part of processing, electioneering and celebrating, as well as striking, rioting and rebelling. It examines the role of music and music-making within the walls of a range of associations and institutions. To persist with the social science construction, the book presents an analysis of those women and men who have been herded together under the rubric of reformers and radicals.

Chartism continued to radicalise religion and in so doing produced a democratic hymnody, one that was infused with the rugged independence typical of the proud working-class tradition of self-help. Hymns then became part of radical political discourse and the fight for democratic reform. This chapter looks both at how Chartist hymnbooks operated as a kind of ideological manifesto and at how hymns worked in action. Owenism and Chartism were linked in innumerable ways: most Owenites were in fact Chartists, but not all Chartists were Owenites. As both movements declined many Chartists and Owenites looking for new articulations of radical thought gravitated toward secularism. The Labour Church was John Trevor's attempt to provide the working classes with an alternative to secularism. From the outset it was underpinned by a synthesis between radical politics and Christian morality. An important adjunct to the musical culture of the church was an appropriate hymnbook.

The desire for new music to better support the imagined new socialist utopias burned brightly in Britain. The book shows that as the century wore on many expressions of musical culture, particularly song repertoire, underwent a kind of 'nativising' as it put down deeper roots in the soils of the Anglophone world. Under a blanket of sound, the sounds of liberty were vital to reaffirming common purpose, renewing commitment and nourishing solidarity. Music and music-making were central elements in the repertoire of popular politics for those who never ventured far from kith and kin, but they also sustained and nourished ties across space and time. The many examples cited in the book cover more than a century and tens of thousands of kilometres. They cross-cut and respond to many significant changes in the political ground rules and thus the actual objectives of reform.

Sing a Song of Sixpence is a case where the political message was entirely encoded and thus available only to the initiated. According to Charles Mackay, the 'lines are political and written in the time of the Commonwealth to a popular melody'. Thomas Cooper's lament was for an era when music-making was a ubiquitous part of the political process and often used as a weapon. A correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald made much the same point to the journal's unsympathetic readership by conceding that the sound of the music must comfort the prisoners. This chapter shows the extent of the radical and reformist Anglophone world: donations were received from places as far removed as Perth and Bundaberg, Otago and Glasgow.