The Prince Regent’s Band

HAIL GUEST• WE ASK NOT WHAT THOU ART.
IF FRIEND. WE GREET THEE. HAND & HEART:
IF STRANGER. SUCH NO LONGER BE:
IF FOE. OUR LOVE SHALL CONQUER THEE. 

This inscription on the pylons at the approach to the city, declares Brighton a welcoming place to all. I wondered how much this aspiration might have applied to the group of European emigrés that formed the basis of the Prince Regent’s Band.

George, Prince of Wales, afterwards Prince Regent and King George IV, over a period of at least 20 years, kept his own private band. Much of that time, the band was based in Brighton, and several members married Brighton women, produced families, and made their homes in the town. Accomplished musicians were recruited mainly from the army, many of them exiled from the Hanoverian forces and often referred to as ‘The King’s German Legion’ From the start of war with France in 1793, owing to the danger of an enemy landing at Brighton, the town was expanded by the presence of volunteer militias and regular troops. As Colonel in Chief of the 10^th Dragoons, Prince George took pleasure in the military spectacle, designed their new uniforms, and when the weather was fine, stayed at their encampment.

Christian Kramer, a Hanoverian musician was recruited in about 1800 initially to join the band of Rear Admiral Payne, but on whose retirement due to ill health, was offered a position in the band of the Prince Regent. A fellow musician, George Egestorff who had sailed with Kramer to England also joined the Court Band. Eventually, the leader, Ludwig Malsch played a decreasing part in managing the band, and it fell to Kramer to recruit musicians to satisfy the requirements of the Prince. It is often said that Kramer used his authority to secure French prisoners of war to swell the ranks, but this is misleading. There were practically no Frenchmen in the Prince Regent’s band. Two recruits: Charles Mennich, and Adam Hagendoorn arrived in 1809 on HMS Lively, a British ship transporting French prisoners from the Peninsular War to Britain, but the ship’s record notes that Mennich was born in Stuttgart and Hagendoorn was from Brussels. In later years, after the band had been broken up, Mennich returned to Brighton, and his descendants became part of the Brighton music scene. His great grandson, who founded the Brighton Competitive Music Festival, gave account of his family origins to the local press, implying that George Mennich and his father had served in the Peninsular War on the side of the French. The article was published in October 1914^[i]Brighton Herald Oct 1914. Nobody wanted to be German in 1914! A later article states he was born in Basel and was the son of Louis, bandmaster in the German Legion. ^[ii]West Sussex Gazette 10 May 1951From a list of the members compiled by Kramer in 1826, it is possible to see that 27 were German or of German descent 16 were British, and not one by that time was French

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John Andre and his brother, Francis were recruited from the 10^th Dragoons to play in the band. They were both players of the serpent, an instrument unfamiliar to modern ears, but at the time, often included in military bands to provide the bass line. John Andre (apparently pronounced ‘Andra’) married Philadelphia Cowley of Rottingdean, at St Nicholas, Brighton in 1794. Their children were baptised at the church between 1795 and 1797. In 1822, the two Andre households lived at 1 and 15 Richmond Hill, very near to Carlton Cottage, the home of Christian Kramer, the band’s leader. ^[iii]Baxter’s Directory 1822

In 1826, just after the band had moved to Windsor, Kramer compiled a list of the then band members, with details of their length of service, their ages, and their personal circumstances.^[iv]Royal Collection Archives, Georgian Papers GEO_MAIN_29064-29065 John Andre at 54 had not moved to Windsor, and at the time was ‘too ill to play’, but he remained in Brighton long enough to appear in the 1851 census., which identified him as born in Germany. Francis Andre, in his army pension record in 1822 was recorded as having been born in Hesse-Kassel. So despite the slightly French-sounding name, the Andre family had originated in Germany. Francis Andre continued in the Private Band and was also in the State Band at Windsor.

One band member who did come from France was Charles Dusart. He was from Mons, Hainaut, now in modern Belgium, but in the 18^th century, part of France. The Prince Regent’s accounts of 1802-3 include a payment for expenses to Captain Quentin for his trip to and from the Isle of Wight to recruit bandsmen from the York and Hompesch Hussars. This unit had been raised in Hanover comprising French emigrés including Catholics, wanting to fight revolutionary France. As Dusart’s name appears in the band accounts the same year, it is reasonable to assume that he was recruited from the Isle of Wight encampment . Also, his marriage to Mary Nixon at Alverstoke on the Hampshire mainland in 1797, and the baptism of their first child Mary Ann Adelaide at a Bristol Roman Catholic church in 1801 would seem to bear this out. As a member of the band, Charles Dusart settled with his family in Brighton and lived there until his death in 1825. The Dusart family became established in the town and at least two of his sons were brought up as musicians.: Charles Frederick as a teacher of music and organist, and his brother, George Alexander, as a piano teacher. Mary Dusart continued to live at Clarence Place and earned her living as a lodging house keeper. She was a close neighbour of Anne Mennich, wife of Charles Mennich, another member of the band. Charles Friederich William Mennich, who had been conveyed as a prisoner of war on HMS Lively, was recruited by Kramer 1809 as first flute and also learnt the horn. He married Anne Philcox , daughter of a Brighton builder in 1817. As the pay in the Prince Regent’s Band was modest, Anne set herself up as a straw bonnet maker, milliner and furrier and ran her business at 27 Grenville Place. Kramer in 1826 described Mennich as “Well-behaved, civil and easily contented. A good musician without presuming”. He was a member of the Dorset Gardens Methodist Church, and together with several other band members, he provided the music for Sunday Service. As a Methodist, Mennich was an abstainer, and declined to drink the complimentary claret provided by the Prince Regent. He did however, accept his half bottle a day , and sold it back to the vintner for some extra income.
Dorset Gardens Methodists enjoyed music of a sophistication exceptional for Methodist churches at the time. As well as Charles Mennich, flute and horn, Gustavus Bode, basset horn and Samuel Tuckwell, clarinet were also associated with Dorset Gardens. The contribution of the band to worship at Dorset Gardens has been noted by Michael Hickman, Circuit Archivist in his book on the history of the church.^[v]Michael R Hickman. A Church with a Mission. Brighton and Hove Methodist Circuit 2008

Other musicians in the band, although at first did not enjoy a comfortable standard of living, eventually prospered. John Distin was one such musician, who in the early years in the band and when his family were growing up, lived in modest surroundings in Richmond Hill close to the Andre family. Kramer noted in 1826 that he was ‘wretchedly poor’. and it was only afterwards that the musical Distin family set up their own band and became famous in Europe and America for their introduction of the saxophone. Kramer added in 1826 that Distin had ‘a vixen for a wife’. What lay behind this unusually nasty comment in the Royal Accounts was probably professional jealousy. Mrs Distin, previously Ann Matilda Loder, was a dancer and musician. Some of her compositions were commissioned by Lady Conyngham, a long term mistress of the Prince Regent, and there is a possibility that as a composer, she succeeded rather better than Kramer in selling her own works.

There were however, some band members, particularly those whose wives died young, who, left with children to bring up, struggled financially. Kramer in 1826 described Robert Medhurst , third clarinet, at age 39 ‘most dreadfully embarrassed in his affairs, a good musician and quiet man” and John Christian Graefenstein, aged 48, widower with 4 children, drummer and copyist, as ‘Willing and humble, drinks and is dirty, but invaluable as a copyist. Wretchedly poor.” Kramer’s 1826 list of musicians, in order to press home the desperate circumstances of some of the band members, included an estimate of the weekly living costs of a Brighton family. Kramer considered this kind of detail to have escaped the knowledge of the Keeper of the Privy Purse, or any other members of the Royal Household who might have been able to relieve this distress. Similarly, in 2012, the then Agriculture Minister embarrassingly admitted to the Press that he did not know the price of a pint of milk, as his wife did the shopping. I would guess that the 1826 list of living costs was supplied by Mary Ann, Christian Kramer’s wife, a practical businesswoman, who would have had this information to hand. Kramer pointed out in his list that a family with three children needed £2 9s 6½d for ‘The necessaries of life’, and that this did not include, rent, clothing, schooling, furniture, or spirits. The list does however give details of the costs of bread, flour, fuel, vegetables, porter, small beer, candles, soap etc., amounting to three shillings more than the income (which was supposed to include lodging money) of most of the bandsmen. Some of the musicians were better paid, for example Johann Waetzig, who was according to Kramer, ‘The best bassoon player in England’ was paid £3.7s in 1826. Waetzig and his wife Johanna Berger, lived in Richmond Gardens, Brighton, where they brought up four children. Kramer had recruited Waetzig in 1815 in Dresden, and he had played in the Prince Regent’s band, William IV’s band, the Queen’s band, and eventually became Leader of the 2^nd Life Guards. ^[vi]for more information on the 2^nd Life Guards, see BBC iplayer, ‘Who do you think you are? Pixie Lott, Series 18 No 5.At this later period, Waetzig performed at popular concerts in London conducted by Louis Jullien, where he was joined by the Distin quartet, a family who had started in the Prince Regent’s Band, but later became famous as saxophone players. Johann Waetzig’s son, John became Serjeant Trumpeter to Queen Victoria, and another son, Gottlob, joined the Royal Household as Master Cook. Waetzig senior applied for naturalisation in 1859 aged 60, which enabled him to own his property at Surbiton Hill, Surrey.

There were many more musicians in the Prince Regent’s Band. If you have an ancestor who was in the band, it is worth checking the 1826 list online at the Royal Archives.(see note 4). Or you could contact me, as I would be pleased to pass on any information I have.