Christian Kramer: the Economics of Musicianship.

Christian Kramer was leader of the Prince Regent’s Private Band from about 1810, and Master of the King’s Music from 1829 to 1834. He became Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy and a member of the Royal Philharmonic Society. A contemporary review called him “A musician of the very first order, both theoretically and practically. He excels on the flute and clarionette, but his knowledge of the effects of instruments is great and universal”^[i]Quarterly Musical Magazine and review Vol 1 No 1 1818. p158 et seq. Despite these accolades, there are few surviving copies of his compositions or arrangements, and no entry in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Kramer lived in Brighton for 30 years and laid the foundations of the continuing musical life of the town, but owing perhaps to a lack of contemporary material, his life is still largely undocumented. ^[ii]except for two articles by Jacqueline Frisby in The Royal Pavilion, Libraries, and Museums Review July 1996 and April 1997 However, recently discovered is an account of Kramer’s early years in England, written by George Egestorff, a horn player, who travelled with Kramer to England in 1800, and some of the following details are taken from Egestorff’s account.^[iii]Cyrus Redding : Personal reminiscences of eminent men Vol 2. London: Saunders, Otley 1867. G H C Egestorff.

Christian Kramer was born in 1779, in Hanover, the son of Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Kramer, an oboe player in the Hanover Foot Guards. Egestorff said that Kramer had been apprenticed to a Hanover town musician. There is no real equivalent in England to the German position of ‘Stadtmusikus’. The town musician was the leader of the town band, and was responsible for providing the music for civic events. This involved the recruitment of musicians and the training of apprentices. The band players were often required to play a variety of instruments as the need arose. Some town bandsmen went on to become court musicians, and some went into the military. This civic commitment and financial support for music in Germany meant that there was a ready supply of accomplished performers and composers. In 1800, Kramer was recruited to join a band in England for Rear Admiral John Willett Payne, and travelled to London with six other musicians including George Egestorff. Payne’s band proved to be a non-starter, and Kramer, Egestorff and one other, accepted posts in the private band of George, Prince of Wales. The work was welcome, but poorly paid. Kramer joined the Freemasons at the London Lodge, 4 Leicester Square in 1805, no doubt hoping that belonging to the masons would result in further work. The German composer, Peter Winter, employed him as an assistant in 1804-5 in the writing of his opera “Il ratto di Proserpina” performed at Covent Garden.^[iv]Michael Kelly: Reminiscences Vol 2 London 1826. p216 Kramer continued to exert his influence in the Prince’s band and gradually took over as leader. According to Egestorff, still in need of funds, Kramer announced to the Prince Regent that he was about to accept a post offered to him in Russia. The Prince prevented his departure by giving him the post of Page of the Presence in the Royal Household thus increasing his income.

In 1809, Kramer married Mary Ann Martin, the young widow of Francis Martin, pastry cook of Brighton. Mary Ann had continued her husband’s business at 33, East Street, Brighton after his death in 1803. His trade card shows him to have been ‘Cook, Pastry-cook and Confectioner to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales’ and a provider of ‘potted wheatears in season’.

Mary Ann benefited from the expertise of her own family of confectioners, including her father, John Bernard Cooke (originally Guck) and her brother John Conrad Cooke, who later published a successful cookery book, ^[v]Cookery and Confectionary, by John Conrade Cooke, Simpkin and Marshall, 1824 which included illustrations of elaborate desserts supplied to the wealthy. Mary Ann Kramer was therefore well-connected with the business community in Brighton, and also through her sister, Lucy Shuckard, wife of Leonard Shuckard, proprietor of The Old Ship Hotel. Christian Kramer, by now living most of the time in Brighton, began to participate in the town’s increasing economic success. Kramer was admitted to the Royal Clarence Lodge Brighton in 1812, probably seeking to build up a local reputation for reliability and loyalty. Not only did the presence of the Prince Regent’s Court stimulate commerce, Britain still being at war with France, Brighton had become a busy and fashionable garrison town. Christian and Mary Ann were able to buy a china and glass shop at the corner of New Road and North Street. George Egestorff, apparently resenting Kramer’s financial success, (although he denied that), dubbed his leader a ‘musical chinaman’, and wrote that Kramer took advantage of his privileged position at The Palace, to sell his glass and china to the nobility with whom he came into contact. George Egestorff maintained that Kramer had bought the business from a china and glass man who had outlets in London and Brighton, serving both Carlton House and The Royal Pavilion, and who, growing old, was selling his business. I would speculate that this was John Crace, decorator to The Prince Regent, who until 1804, had. supplied the Pavilion with all manner of luxury artefacts. His son, Frederick, became a friend of Kramer, and was executor of Mary Ann’s will. The china and glass business, probably run by Mary Ann, with a valuable assistant, Francis Edmund de Val (in later years, custodian of the Royal Pavilion) proved a success, and having accumulated some capital, the Kramers ventured into property. Their own house, Carlton Cottage, was a standalone property ,’with extensive gardens and every possible convenience for a genteel family'^[vi]British Press 21 Oct 1825. Also advertised for sale in 1825 were ‘a smaller residence and garden, very contiguous, and a compact house in Sussex Street on the Grand Parade, with a large yard fitted up with coach houses and stabling for 20 horses’. All this property was advertised as freehold. Carlton Cottage in 1825, when the Kramers were selling up to move to Windsor, was described as being near Dorset Gardens, and later was surrounded by houses in Carlton Hill. Carlton Cottage, at 80 Carlton Hill, later became part of the ‘Italian Arms’ and was demolished as late as the 1950s. Property deeds at The Keep ^[vii]ESRO PAR267/25/4/3 20 Feb 1845also identify a piece of land north of Carlton Hill bought by Christian Kramer in 1819. This ground was large enough to build a street of small houses. Mary Ann as a widow, in 1837 left ‘all that my capital freehold messuage situate and being No 3 in the Royal Crescent Brighton with the coachhouse and stables and all appurtenances, and all my freehold and copyhold cottages and tenements, grounds and hereditaments situate at Brighton’. One street off Carlton Hill was first named ‘Apollo Gardens’, and it is tempting to attribute the reference to Apollo, god of music, to Christian Kramer. In order to gain title to the land in Carlton Hill, Kramer applied for naturalisation by Private Act of Parliament ^[viii]Parliamentary Archives GB-061 HL/PO/PB/1/1820/1G4n270 Kramer’s naturalisation papers include a statement that his father, Henry William Kramer ‘has the honour to be known to HRH The Prince Regent and all the Royal Dukes and has served his majesty in Hannover forty five years’. This suggests that Kramer’s father as a regular soldier in the Hanoverian guard, was a member of what has come to be known as ‘The King’s German Legion’ . The historical connection between the British Crown and the Hanoverian Army since the time of George I was further consolidated by the annexation of Hanover by Napoleon in 1803. As I shall show in my next post, the Hanoverian army was a major source of musicians for the band of the Prince Regent.

When Mary Ann Kramer’s will was proved in 1837, the Brighton landowner contested the validity of the Kramers’ wills on the grounds that Christian had been an alien at the time of his will. Charles Bellingham, the lawyer drawing up the deeds confirmed that Kramer had indeed achieved naturalisation, and prevented the repossession of the land by the Lord of the Manor.

In addition to the property mentioned in Mary Ann’s will, The Kramers owned a lodging house in Marine Parade, identified as being on the corner of South Parade and Marine Parade. Business did not always run smoothly, and Christian complained that the ground between the house and the seafront was used as a stand for hackney carriages, so blocking the sea view. In 1822 the construction of the chain pier involved the building of a shed for building materials, also spoiling the view, and Christian was taken to court after he employed labourers to remove it at three in the morning.^[ix]E.Hollingdale: Mr Kramer and the Shed, in Sussex History Vol 2 No 7 1984 pp 22-24 Kramer was exonerated as ‘ long being a resident of this town, as a man of business honourable in his dealings, intelligent in capacity, gentlemanly in behaviour, mild in temper, but spirited on a point of right, he has even deserved and possessed the respect of the public’ ^[x]Morning Post 13 August 1822
In 1825, The Prince Regent, then George IV, moved the court and the band to Windsor. Christian Kramer continued as leader of the band, which was disbanded five years later on the death of the King. Kramer succeeded William Shield as Master of the King’s Music, but outlived George IV by only four years. He died at his residence in Huntley Street, Bedford Square, age 54, and was buried in the vault of the German Lutheran Church, in The Savoy Chapel in the Strand. He left his estate to his widow, with the exception of £800 to his two sisters, Christina and Henrietta. His younger sister had stayed in Brighton at Kramer’s invitation, to seek a cure for a swollen knee. The provider of the treatment was Sake Dean Mahomed, founder of the Indian Vapour Massage Baths on the Brighton seafront, and known as ‘Dr Brighton’. According to the testimonial Kramer provided for Mahomed,^[xi]Sake Dean Mahomed, Shampooing; or benefits resulting from the use of the Indian medicated vapour bath. Brighton, 1826 the treatment was a great success. Kramer himself, listed as a subscriber in Mahomed’s book, as a chronic gout sufferer sought Mahomed’s treatments, as did The Prince Regent. Mary Ann left Mahomed £5 for a mourning ring in her will.

This post has concentrated on Christian Kramer’s connections and business interests in Brighton. I will include in future posts more about his leadership of the Prince Regent’s Band, and the musical legacy of its members. There will also be more about Mary Ann Kramer, who lived in Brighton until she died in 1834.