Portsmouth Music Scene


The Portsmouth Music Scene

Portsmouth's own Stanley Mathews



Stanley Mathews born 6th December1913 in Portsmouth married Rosalind Collins in 1936 at Portsmouth,
Rosalind ran dancing classes and dance through the 1950's at the Wellington Hall in Portsmouth, whilst Stanley was an accomlished musician.

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The Wellington Hall, Wellington Street, Portsmouth stood where the Art College stands now.

He had his own Band and Orchestra and also played piano and organ at assorted functions.

June 5th 1946, At the Wellington Hall Waterlooville Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Stanley Matthews at the piano.
February 6th 1947, Dancing every Wednesday and Saturday to Stan Matthews and his Band at Wellington Hall, Portsmouth.
August 18th 1947, The Stan Mathews Orchestra play for dancing at the Wellington Hall.
September 30th 1949, The Stan Mathews Orchestra play for dancing at the Wellington Hall.
May 2nd 1951, The Portsmouth Musical Festival takes place at the Buckland Congregational Church. The Bullin Cup was won by Mr. Stanley Matthews and his wife Rosalind in the Duet class. He was previously pianist at the Wellington Hall, Southsea.
April 10th 1953, Stan Mathews and his band play at the South Parade Pier.
June 3rd 1953, Stanley Mathews and his Band play at the Wellington Hall Coronation dance.
June 4th 1953, Stanley Mathews and his Band play at the Wellington Hall, St James Road, Southsea for a Grand Coronation Dance.
December 14th 1957, Portsmouth Glee Club Christmas Concert at the Wesley Central Hall, Fratton Road with soloists Max Jaffa, Jack Byfield and Reginald Kilby with Stanley Mathews organist.
December 14th 1957, Chamber Music Recital at John Pounds Church included Rosalind Mathews cello, John Durrant piano and Ernest Barr violin.
April 4th 1958, Good Friday The Portsmouth Glee Club perform a concert at the Wesley Central Hall, with soloists Isobel Baillie soprano, Reginald Wassell baritone and Stanley Mathews organ.
May 16th 1958, Stan Mathews and his Orchestra play at the Rock Gardens Pavilion for the Dairy Maid of Portsmouth Ball.
February 17th 1959, The Wellington Hall re-opens after short indisposition of Mrs. R Mathews.
September 23rd 1959, Stanley Mathews and his Orchestra play at the Guildhall.

In later years he was involved with the Milton Glee Club.

The family homes according to Kellys Directory.
1939/40 Stanley C Mathews 34 Southdown Road Cosham.
1976 Stanley C Mathews 4 St Nicholas Street

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Stanley Mathews at the organ of Copnor Methodist Church.

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Mr. Stanley Mathews and his wife Rosalind of Old Portsmouth celebrating their golden wedding anniversary.
A MUSICAL Portsmouth couple, Stanley and Rosalind Mathews, have celebrated 50 golden years of perfect harmony, They met at a ballroom dance where Mr. Mathews was playing in the band. He invited his future wife, a cellist and pianist, to join the band and they are still striking the right chords more than 50 years later. Although Mr. Mathews (72) played jazz and his wife the classics they were in harmony for 56 years.
"Rosalind played jazz with my band when we met but I also went over to her side to play chamber music," said Mr. Mathews, who spent 47 years in Portsmouth's treasury department. Mrs. Mathews (76) taught music for 40 years at , Portsmouth High School ' and also played in many festivals and symphony orchestras. Mr. and Mrs. Mathews, who live in St Nicholas Street, Old Portsmouth,were married in St Peter's Church, Somers Road, after a six-year romance.
They both agreed the secret behind their long and harmonious marriage was because they shared the same interests. "We have led very busy lives so we've not had the time for arguments or fights," Mrs. Mathews joked.

Many top comedians, not to mention thousands of local dance enthusiasts, have cause to thank Portsmouth's Mr. Music, Stan Mathews. Since the war he's been maestro of the local rhythm scene as accompanist to the famous, and as orchestra and band leader as accomplished in his own sphere as his famous counterpart (with the extra '"t" to his surname) was on the football field.
He has had two things going for him - his ability as a musician, and a trick that has stood him in good-stead since he first played piano in his grandfather's dancing academy in Wellington Street. Stan is a musical Jekyll and Hyde, without a sinister note in sight . By day he is Mathews the local Government Man, managing 'Portsmouth Corporation's complex stores organization. By night, Mathews The Music. "Always, when I have had a musical engagement, I have gone home from the office and gone to bed for an hour. That way I forget the demands of local government and when I wake up I am l00 per cent. refreshed and ready to be the bandleader."
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harmony2 Not that everything always goes with a swing. He chortles over one embarrassing moment his friends are loath to let him forget - the time he refused to accompany Frankie Vaughan: ' Frankie was up - and - coming then and agreed to appear at the Rock Garden Pavilion. His contract said he was not allowed to sing,' At that time he was interested in judo and he and a friend gave a display. ,Afterwards he came across - it was about 12.30 - and said he had decided he would sing just one number.
`I didn`t know who he was - he was dressed for the judo display. I said to him `Oh no, mate, not at this time of night.' Eventually we agreed he could do just one number. I was very embarrassed when he was introduced. "Of course, as soon as he started singing the people wouldn't let him stop. I apologized afterwards and he. was very pleasant about it." Wasn't Stan Mathews sick to death of the Stan Mathews joke?
"No, not at all. It's always been a good conversation opener. I remember anoccasion during the war when I and; two other musicians were to give a recital as a Bach trio. Our names were on the posters and when we arrived at Daventry Grammar School, the hall was full to capacity with young football fans. "Numbers dwindled fast when they realized I wasn't the famous Stan. I've never seen an audience leave so quickly."
Comedians like Jimmy. Edwards, Charlie Chester, Tommy Handey, and, in recent weeks, Roy Castle, have always been grateful for Stan Mathews's name being on the bill. "It's a comedian's godsend. They are sure of a laugh when I'm sitting at the piano on stage and they can say 'Introducing , on the right wing, Mr. Stanley Mathews"

A piano in his perfect ptich
Incomplete copy. The lads lined up outside the hail were ed. They were waiting impatiently for the Stanley Matthews, THE Stanley Mathews, footballer extraordinary. The wizard e dribble. Peerless wringer whose ball control and body swerve were to football what an Olivier aside was to acting.
Imagine their surprise when Stan arrived, painist Stanley Mathews still chuckles he recalls that day when his name to football's billing misled the young all fans. Portsmouth's Mr. Music. who has become accompanist to Portsmouth Glee Club, is at home in all types of music. Isobel Baillie, Elsie Morrison, John Lawrenson, Owen Branigan, Tommy Handley, Jack Warner, Charlie Chester, Jimmy Edwards, Frankie Vaughan, Sir Charles Groves and the Liverpool Philharmonic.
Progammes representing as wide a spectrum sic as you can imagine, and Stan worked with them all. His musical tastes range from dance to chamber music, and he says: "You name them, and I have been their accompanist.
Aged 63, he recently retired after 47 years in Portsmouth City Treasurer's Department, but he remains very active on the local music scene. He has been linked with the Glee Club for 30 years, has played at countless Lord Mayor s banquets, and is popular at dinner dances and chamber music recitals. He frequently pays the Portsmouth Guildhall organ, and his wife, Rosalind, plays cello in several local orchestras. The musical couple live in St Nicholas Street, Old Portsmouth.
As reported on Thursday, Mr. Mathews will be accompanying the guest artists at the Glee Club's autumn concert on Saturday. Among them is local singer Rosemary Murphy, who moved from the North of England nine years ago after being engaged as principal soloist in choral and operatic work. Until two years ago she was a member of Waterlooville Musical Players, and she includes in her many engagements the Waterford Light Opera Festival.

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THOSE DANCING DAYS - ROBERT LINDSAY studies the flood of letters received on the Wellington Dancing Academy.
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Stanley Mathews, the grandson of the establishment's founder, wrote to The News back in 1969, a few weeks after Wellington Hall was demolished, with a full history of the dance academy.
"In 1893," he wrote, "my grandfather, George J Hore, purchased a disused chapel and two small houses. In the following year, after making a few structural alterations, he opened it as the Wellington ington Dancing Academy. "He was the first dancing instructor in the business, and his wife organized the catering side.
"Their six children were all actively involved in the project. George J Hore junior (later to become headmaster of Wellington Place School), Charlie Hore (for many years a teacher at the Southern Grammar School) and their sister Fanny, all became dancing teachers, and sisters Nellie and Lottie helped with the catering and social side.
"My mother, Mrs R Mathews, started in the business as the pianist and apprentice dancing teacher, later to become a fullyfledged and qualified teacher with her brothers and sister.
"The family continued to run the academy on a co-operative basis, continually through World War I and on to 1938, when my mother became the sole proprietress and the remaining relatives retired. "My mother continued teaching from then until 1964, not even closing the academy during World War II. "When she eventually retired through ill health, she was 76.
"In 1953 the notice of possible slum-clearance in the area was served on her, and it is ironical to think that the old building was actually demolished three weeks ago - three years after her death in 1966." Patrick George, of Merrivale Road, Portsmouth, moved to 14, Wellington Street, in 1940, his family having been bombed out of their previous home.
"My earliest memory of Wellington Hall," he writes, "is running down Duro Street alongside the hall, to peep through the window at Mrs Mathews' clock so that I could tell my grandmother the position of the big and little hands (our clock was not too reliable).
"Then there were the nights with my pals on the roof of the air-raid shelter in front of the hall, watching the dancers going through their paces, until Mrs Mathews banished us forever for cheering when a dancer slipped up. "Some years later she paid me two and sixpence to inflate hundreds of balloons by mouth for her Christmas dance. "That became an annual ritual that left me with a pounding headache and a half-crown in my pocket.
"Even now, the dashing whitesergeant or the gay gordons evokememories of the nights I drifted off to the sounds of music and shuffling of feet." Mrs Mary Herring, of Toronto Road, Buckland, says her mother knew Mrs Mathews very well. "We lived on the other corner at no 7, I and my brothers were born there.
"As a child I would lie in bed at night-and listen to the music and dancing, never any trouble there." The establishment was apparently very select, and no one was admitted after the pubs had closed. Incendiary bombs destroyed their home and they had to move.
"My mother and I stood and watched the Guildhall burning, fires all around us, no water to put them out. We never saw Mrs Mathews again."
ON THE DOOR • Rose Mathews' husband, Charles

Stan Mathews has had a life-long competitor in the keep-busy stakes - his wife Rosalind. They met when she was playing cello in the old Dome Trio in the L.D.B. store of pre-war' days.
`We used to play Palm Court music, and when this became old fashioned, I took up the alto-saxaphone. We played with Stan it the Wellington Dancing Academy. '"1 also played at John Dyers in Elm Grove. That was more sophisticated and musicians employed there were of a very high standard. My predecessor on the cello was Jack Long, who is now with Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra.
Over the years she has played in many orchestras, taught piano and cello at Portsmouth High School from the 30's until a few years ago, and brought up two children, her husband says she is a better pianist than he. Why in her opinion had her husband been so successful'?
"He's a pleasant, placid man, an accomplished musician and always keen to help people. And that hour's sleep every evening has helped his stamina!'' When they retire they want to return to their first love - chamber music,

Mrs. Rosalind Mathews, nee Hore, link with the days of the Dome Trio

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l to r top Miss Ward, Mrs Bailey,
l to r bottom Miss Pym, Miss Hore.

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Left to right;- Ted Harris, Rosalind Mathews, Ken Alexander, Stan Mathews, Roy Murray

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At the Portsmouth Guildhall

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Left to right;- Roy, Tom, Barry in the 1960's

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Stan Mattews Band in the 1960's

letf to right Stan Mattews,?, Barry McCarthy, ?, ?.

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Tom, Barry and Stan Mathews

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