The lost archive of our own Strauss, Dorothy Howell

Aug 27 2010 By Matt Lloyd

She was branded the English Strauss during her time, but the life of Birmingham composer Dorothy Howell had almost been forgotten, until now. Matt Lloyd reports.

Despite composing more than 130 pieces and being branded the “English Strauss” by the national press in the 1920s, the Handsworth composer Dorothy Gertrude Howell has been largely forgotten.

Now, thanks to an amazing discovery of archived photographs, letters, press cuttings and musical scores, some nearly a century old, the life of the musical legend has been brought back into the spotlight.

The old boxes chronicling the rise and life of Howell, who was born in 1898, were found by Birmingham music librarian Ursula Colville.

As she made her way through the archive, kept by Howell’s niece and nephew Merryn and Columb Howell, from Bewdley, Worcestershire, she discovered a lost legend who, in her day, was hounded by press and paparazzi, desperate to photograph the composer.

“It’s absolutely fantastic,” says Ursula, “and it just came out of the blue.”

“I took a regular phone enquiry about photocopying some musical scores and it turns out it was the niece of Dorothy Howell.

“I invited her to the library and when she got here she’d been walking around with these complete scores in original handwriting in a carrier bag.”

After further enquires Ursula learnt the Howells had kept scores of photographs, compositions and cuttings from their famous aunt’s heyday.

Eager to see their ancestor’s work remembered they agreed to Ursula scanning and photographing the collection, preserving Howell’s life in digital form. The detailed archive shows she was born to the daughter of a Birmingham ironmaster and raised on Wye Cliffe Road, Handsworth.

She was also the granddaughter of Alfred Feeney, arts and music critic for the then Birmingham Daily Post and cousin of the Birmingham Post founder John Feeney.

After a convent education and musical upbringing she began composing aged just 13 and was accepted to the Royal Academy of Music at 15 years old.

But it was with her piece Lamia, based on a poem of the same name by Keates that she came to the attention of the national press.

The composition was championed by Sir Henry Wood, first conductor of the Promenade Concerts which exist today as the BBC Proms, and was performed a staggering five times in one season during 1919.