Charles McCallon Alexander.
1867 – 1920.
Noted Evangelist, Singer and Composer.
There
are very many Internet references to Charles M. Alexander, as you can see for yourself
if you enter his name in Google.
This
page is rather different, in that it tells a story of an investigation, which
began by chance, and led through fascinating historical by-ways, until it
reached its conclusion. A conclusion which was, oddly, both amazing and also
rather prosaic!
But
I think that if you have a few minutes to spare to read on, you will not be
disappointed. Indeed, if you already know about the work of Alexander and the
world-wide Christian Evangelical Missions in which he took part between 1902
and virtually up to his death in 1920, I think I can promise you a pleasant
surprise at the end of this page!
There
are any number of biographical sketches of Alexander available from the many
web-sites on which he figures; you can look at these for yourself; or perhaps
you’re familiar with his life already. In any case, please forgive me if I tell
this little story as I experienced it; I hope you may be as delighted as I was
when it finally unfolded…
In
1971 I was working for my father in his shop in the centre of
It
gets very stuffy and ‘containing’ when you work in one small shop for years on
end, so it was always nice to take a break at lunch-time, and, weather
permitting, get out and about. On one such occasion, I strolled around the city
centre, doing nothing in particular.
Then
I saw the Antique shop. It was strange, because there were never many Antique
shops in the very centre of
The
more I think about it, this particular shop may have been quite temporary; it
certainly wasn’t there for very long, and I’m even beginning to suspect that it
might have been there just for one specific purpose… but I’m getting
ahead of myself!
I
can’t clearly recall what sort of items were in it, because my attention was
immediately drawn to some old 78 rpm records, in a small pile. Funny; I can
remember that there weren’t very many: not hundreds, maybe just twenty or
thirty. They were all old, that much I can remember. And they were also
relatively expensive: £1.50 each; that is, $2.75 in today’s money. At that
time, one could find many piles of old 78 records in second-hand shops – and
even the less ‘up-market’ Antique shops – for around 20 or 25 pence… say 30 or
40 cents apiece.
Also,
I was primarily interested in Jazz and Dance Band records at the time; but
also, ‘old and unusual’ 78s qualified too; so I bought this yellow label HMV
‘Private Record’ by Charles Alexander.
The
reason for buying it was simple: HMV used the yellow label for their ‘Private
Recordings’ for many years; I don’t know when they stopped their special
recording service, but it was certainly still being used – still with yellow
labels - as late as 1937.
Of
course, I bought it because it was unusual and by far the earliest HMV ‘Private
Record’ I had ever seen; for that matter, it still is!
Are
you getting bored yet? I hope not; but the tempo of the story will pick up from
now on!
Thirty-three
years passed by. (You see? Now we’re really getting somewhere!)
It
is now March 2004. On the 78-list (which, as its name implies, is an Internet
Discussion List devoted to 78 records), one of the members mentioned the
Revivalist Hymn ‘Tell Mother I’ll Be There’.
This
struck a chord, for one of the sides of the yellow label HMV which had sat on
my record shelves for 33 years was this very song.
I
checked out the origin of this hymn, which is as follows.
In
1896, William McKinley was elected the 25th. President of the Unites States of
This
story was of course widespread in the news, and a writer of hymns, Charles M.
Fillmore, was moved to use the phrase as the title of a composition, which was
published in 1898.
Clearly,
with the advent of the Internet and its amazing power, the next step was to
find out more about Charles Alexander himself.
This
proved easy, and I found that Charles McCallon Alexander was born at
As
I was making notes from the ’net, I saw that Alexander had died in 1920, and
was buried in
However,
all was explained when it emerged that in 1904, he had married Helen Cadbury,
one of the daughters of Richard Cadbury, the head of the famous firm of
chocolate makers in Birmingham. She had gone with her mother Emma to one of the
Torrey-Alexander evangelical meetings in the Bingley Hall,
The photograph above shows CMA (as we shall call
him) with Reuben Archer Torrey, singing at a meeting at
However,
Alexander died at the age of only 53 in late 1920.
Oddly,
no mention of his making records seemed to occur on the ’net.
But
the ’net had given me much to go on; and knowing that the Birmingham Reference
Library had a good local history section, I went there. Almost the first book I
found was a biography of Richard Cadbury, written by Helen Cadbury Alexander
and published in 1906. It had been inscribed to a friend by Helen, and
subsequently given to the library. It was strange that I should so soon be looking
at the handwriting of someone who I had first encountered only a day or so
before! (-3)
Consulting
the library index revealed a key book: a 270-page biography of Charles
Alexander, written by his widow Helen Cadbury Alexander and J. Kennedy Maclean,
and dating from the early 1920s. Unfortunately, this book must have been put
into storage and was not currently readily accessible. (-4)
This
was a disappointment, but happily it proved quite easy to obtain my own copy:
again, via the Internet. All the sepia photographs on this page are borrowed
from that copiously illustrated volume. I also obtained a copy of a more
modern, smaller book by Simon Fox which well complemented the first one. Having
been written quite recently, it contained a short summary of the life of Helen
Cadbury Alexander Dixon subsequent to the death of Charles in 1920. (-5)
[Though she had no thoughts of marrying again, she nevertheless received a
proposal from Dr. Amzi Clarence Dixon. He too was an evangelist, and had been a
friend of CMA in the
From
the books, I knew that she and CMA had a fine new house, built for them by the
Cadburys. It was in
She
bequeathed house and its grounds to be redeveloped into accomodation for
elderly people. This was done, though it seems likely that the original house
was not readily adaptable to the purpose, and so brand new much larger
structure was put up. But as one would expect, it is still called ‘
In
any event, items remaining in the original house must have been cleared. Many
of these would have been valuable or collectable, and probably donated to
suitable foundations, or sent for fund-raising auction. For example, I have
been told, since this page has been on the ’net, that his library is now housed
in suitable honour, in a Christian establishment near Meadow, Tennessee,
U.S.A., CMA’s birthplace. But some other items possibly considered of less
interest, I feel certain, were cleared from the house and put on sale, in that
rather unexpected Antique Shop I was telling you about way up near the top of
this page!
Remember,
I found the records in 1971; it must have taken some time, a year, eighteen
months, whatever, to make all the arrangements for the new ‘Tennessee’, and
that would bridge the interval between the passing of Helen in 1969 and my
finding the records in 1971.
The
point is that, astonishingly, I must have found Charles Alexander’s own
record collection!
If
only I had bought them all! But there remains just the one of them. This,
however, is the crucial one, because it contains the two songs most closely
identified with C.M.A.: ‘Tell Mother I’ll Be There” and “The Glory Song”.
So
what do we know about C.M.A.’s records; that is, the ones he made himself?
As
I said, I could find no reference to them on the Internet, though of course
there may be information there somewhere.
Only
on page 149/50 of the book C.M.A. is reference made to recordings:
“A
striking instance of the way in which Alexander turned to account any
opportunity for bringing the Gospel-song messages to the notice of people
occurred during the great London Mission of 1905. As was often the case,
malicious reports had been industriously circulated that both Dr. Torrey and
Mr. Alexander were making a fortune out of their work.
Though
it would be a major job, it should be possible to locate that advertisement in
the files of whatever newspaper it appeared in.
Thanks
to the help of various record enthusiasts, we have made much progress on
listing the recordings CMA made for The Gramophone Company. (-6)
Above
all, there are Alan Kelly’s invaluable CD-ROM listings of early Gramophone Co.
masters, painstakingly compiled by him from the archives of EMI (the successors
of that company), which he has generously made available (at trivial cost) for
research purposes. (-7)
We
can thus list here all the recordings CMA made for The Gramophone Company,
whether they were issued or not.
There
were three recording sessions.
Session 1. Monday, 20th February 1905:
Charles
Alexander. Choir of The Torrey Alexander
1811 The Glory Song (Gabriel) G.C.-4804
1812 An incident in The Glory Song
(Alexander) G.C.-4805
1813 The Glory Song, with incident - the
story of the bootmaker* (Gabriel) G.C.-4806;
Zono X-44756
1814 Tell Mother I’ll be there (Alexander) G.C.-4807; HMV Private Record
(illustrated above).
* I think this might be a transcription
error for ‘bookmaker’: i.e., one who takes bets on horse races. I only say this
because Alexander’s biography is naturally full of examples of the conversion
to active Christianity, of actors, entertainers, drinkers, and many other kinds
of people then regarded as inherently dissolute, cf. immediately below. On the
other hand, a bootmaker simply plied an ancient and humble craft; after all,
Jesus Christ was a carpenter… We may never know for sure, unless we can
actually find a copy of this record. Alas, they are all very scarce these days.
Session 2. Monday 17th April 1905:
Charles
Alexander. Piano acc. Robert Harkness.
1998 Conversion of a humorous entertainer
(Alexander) Zono X-44757
1999 Conversion of a humorous entertainer
(Alexander) G.C.-4808
2000 The old-time religion (Alexander) G.C.-4809
2001 The old-time religion (Alexander) unissued
2002 The ninety and nine (Alexander) unissued
2003 The ninety and nine (Alexander) G.C.-4810
2004 The sunbeam song (Alexander) G.C.-4811
2005 The
sunbeam song (Alexander) Broken
Charles
Alexander with The Minster Singers. Piano acc. Robert Harkness.
2006 The Glory Song (Gabriel)unissued
2007 The Glory Song (Gabriel) G.C.-4812; HMV Private Record
(illustrated below).
Session 3. Tuesday 20th June 1905:
Charles
Alexander. Acc. unknown.
974 The Glory Song (Gabriel) master destroyed
975 The
Glory Song (Gabriel) master destroyed
976 Never lose sight master destroyed
977 Never lose sight master destroyed
2178 Incident of a conversion master destroyed
(‘Unissued’ means, in this case, that
two versions of the performance were recorded, and that the one regarded as the
better was selected for issue. The other version was still retained for
possible future use. ‘Broken’ means that the original recording (which were
made on a more or less thick wax disc), had been accidentally broken while
removing it from the recording lathe, or in some subsequent handling of it.
‘master destroyed’ may mean that (a) there was a technical problem with the
recordings, and so they were non-viable; (b) the company decided not to ever
issue those recordings for some other reason: which we will never know; (c)
possibly CMA himself regarded them as unsatisfactory. It has ever - or at least
should be - the prerogative of the artist to veto the issue of recordings which
they themselves deem unsatisfactory. In any event, the master recordings of
these sides were seemingly discarded, as a deliberate measure.)
So
there were nine single-sided Gramophone Concert Records of CMA issued at the
time. We have begun to look for them of course, but as yet – December 2007 – we
have not found any. Interestingly, Zonophone X-44757 is an alternative ‘take’
to the earlier version on G.G.-4808, so there are in fact ten discs we
need to find for a complete collection of the recorded output of Charles
Alexander.
The
above photograph is of Robert Harkness, CMA’s regular piano accompanist; they
met in Harkness’s native
Above
all, ‘The Glory Song’ made a great impression. It was recorded by several
artists for the Nicole and Odeon record labels, and definitely entered what we
might call the ‘popular religious culture’ of the period. It is mentioned in
Robert Tressell’s book ‘The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists’, which was
written around this time, though (as Tressell was an atheist) the reference is
slighting. On the other hand, the mother of a friend of mine, when I casually
mentioned this research to her, asked, with great interest: ‘How did the song
go?’ I sang her a few bars, and she instantly recognised it (she had suspected
this from the title), as a song she had heard in her youth, in the later 1920s.
It had been habitually sung by an elderly lady who always sang it as she walked
around the town doing her shopping. This lady was generally regarded as rather
eccentric for doing so; but we can see by this small example, what an immense
influence ‘The Glory Song’ actually had in this country in the first decade of
the 20th century.
The
sort of label these original ‘Gramophone Concert Records’ bore is shown here.
In spite of the claim that many thousands were sold, they have become, after
100 years, very scarce today. In the years since this page was first written,
no further examples have been found, even though we have several collector
friends looking for them. By the way,
the details of the Zonophones are from a listing published by the City of
London Phonograph & Gramophone Society (-8).
Now
in 1905 all Gramophone Company records were single sided, so the double-sided
yellow HMV must have been pressed after 1912, when HMV finally began to issue
double-sided records bearing that name. When I sent a scan of it to some
knowledgeable friends, Steven Walker pointed out that the trade-mark picture was
in sepia and not in full colour. This was a Great War economy measure, in force
between 1915 and ~1919, so the disc must have been produced in that period.
More
particularly, why was it produced? On December 16th 1914 Charles and
Helen Alexander sailed for the U.S. on the Lusitania for a long series
of American Campaigns, now with Dr. Chapman. These continued for several years
until they returned to
So
either the disc was made to special order while the Alexanders were in the
The
HMV company had the commendable policy of ‘pressing to order’ practically
anything they had in their already large archive. Even ‘one-offs.’ These custom
pressings were not cheap, to be sure, but we sigh for those far-off days when
such things were possible. Perhaps the Alexanders ordered a quantity of these
double-sided Private Records, and presented them to friends and colleagues. We
may never know; but at least one survives; and you shall hear it soon, if you
so desire…
That
the Alexanders used gramophone records in their work is not specifically stated
in the book ‘C.M.A.’, but may safely be inferred, as the photograph you see
here plainly shows the polished brass horn of a gramophone on the upstairs
balcony of ‘
Above
are seen Helen and Charles, not long after their arrival home. Alas, they were
not to enjoy a long peaceful time together after their travels; indeed, they
were back in the U.S.A. in 1920, not returning home until September. His health
doubtless weakened by so many years of evangelical toil, CMA suffered from a
heart attack at the end of that month, but seemed to recover quickly. However, on October 13th, he suffered
another, and expired peacefully in his sleep.
It’s
time to bring this long page to a conclusion: but first let me tell you
something of the follow-up research I made, after I had become fascinated by
this story which began by chance for me 33 years ago, and ended up encompassing
a period of one hundred and thirty-seven years, 1867-2004.
My
first quest was to find the grave of C.M.A. You see it below in the centre of
the photograph from the book. The book is undated, but clearly was published
quite soon after his death; say ~1922, at a guess. (Certainly before 1924, when
Helen remarried and became Helen Cadbury Alexander Dixon). The
The
grave is next to that of Richard and Emma Cadbury, Helen’s parents, both of
whom died in tragic circumstances, but that is quite another story…
Here
is another photograph, from the book, of the headstone. The entire inscription is
given in the notes. (-9) The Cadbury family were of course Quakers, and a
Quaker Burial Ground is necessarily different; but the municipal authorities of
Here
you see the Alexander and the Richard Cadbury graves as in the 1920s photograph
above. The additional grave between them is that of other family members:
Arnold E. Butler (1872-1949) and his wife Edith Cadbury 1872-1951. Edith was
the sister of Helen.
CMA’s
grave is in Plot B6, and the number is 290.
Birmingham
– at least until the last 25 years or so – has always been a city of Industry:
metals, foundries, chemicals: manufacture of many things requiring the burning
of coal & producing disagreeable emissions. So the quality of the air, even
in a place several miles from the City Centre such as Lodge Hill, would have
been very poor for many years following 1920.
Accordingly,
the grave marker, though essentially in good condition, has suffered from
surface erosion, and is discoloured. And the inscriptions (which are intact,
being metal letters inlaid into the stone) are rather hard to read unless you
get close up.
Four
people are interred here.
C.M.A.
and Helen had one child, a boy, who, alas, died within a few hours of his
birth, in 1911.
C.M.A.
himself died on 13th October 1920.
My
initial visit to the grave had overlooked a curious fact, only rectified when I
returned to take more photographs. On the right hand side of the monument is
recorded the fact that also buried here is Robert Harkness, the pianist who, as
told above, had first met C.M.A. in Australia in 1902, and who worked so well
with Alexander that he remained his accompanist for twelve years, travelling
round the world in this capacity. He died in London on 8th May 1961, aged 81,
and being buried here, so rejoined his old master after a space of forty-seven
years.
Helen
Cadbury Alexander Dixon died on 1st March 1969, aged 92. Romans I : 16 reads:
“For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto
Salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek”.
Bu
when the grave stones were replaced after her interment (or else following that
of Harkness, eight years before), the two side stones were interchanged. You
will see that in the original 1920s photo above, the inscription to their
infant son is on the right hand side, while now the memorial to Harkness
occupies that place. Whether this was by design or chance we will doubtless
never know…
In
his excellent book, Simon Fox tells us of Helen (p. 142): “She never lost her
youthful love of music and retained a fine singing voice well into her old age,
continuing to sing in one of the local choirs until she was ninety! She
especially loved to sing songs from the hymnals which Charles had published.
They brought back to her many happy memories of the fascinating and exciting life
she had led with him. She was always in love with him, and until her dying
day kept his Den, with its innumerable papers, books and lantern slides, just
as it had been when he was alive”. [My italics]
How
easily might this ‘old gramophone record’ have somehow been discarded or even,
accidentally broken, during the half-century between 1920 and 1969 unless it
had been looked after, with everything else, so lovingly!
If
you have received from reading this little essay some of the fascination and
excitement it exerted over me as I researched the story, my humble efforts will
have been well rewarded.
And
now it is high time to provide you with links to the mp3 audio files, so that
you can hear Charles Alexander at the height of his powers, with Robert Harkness
and a chorus, performing these two famous songs as they did all over the world!
These recordings were made over a century ago, so do not expect high fidelity;
and you may be surprised at the stentorian vigour with which they are delivered
by CMA. But of course, he sang to audiences numbering many thousands, and there
was no electrical amplification in 1905! Just click the link to hear each song:
N.B. It has not yet been possible to
determine exactly what pitch to give these sides. The recording speed varied
quite a bit at that time, and is usually below 78 rpm. However, when played at
78 rpm as here, ‘The Glory Song’ comes out in the key of A flat. I would have
thought that G would be a more likely candidate. But taking the pitch down to G
makes the record sound slow. ‘Tell Mother I’ll Be Here’, which is from a
different recording session, plays in A, and sounds wrong in A flat. However,
we have been informed by a kind correspondent (I shall add his name here later)
that both these songs are printed in the music in A flat, so it seems likely
that this is the correct key for both these recordings. We have to assume of
course, that the piano at the Gramophone Company was tuned to A=439; which was
then the standard low pitch in Britain. But we cannot at this stage be certain
even of this…
Acknowledgments
& notes.
-2 http://www.1timothy4-13.com/files/chr_vik/art01.html
-3 “Richard Cadbury” by Helen Cadbury
Alexander. Hodder & Stoughton. London, 1906. Inscription copied by
permission of Birmingham Reference Library.
-4 “Charles
M. Alexander: A Romance of Song and Soul-Winning” by Helen C. Alexander and J.
Kennedy Maclean. Marshall Brothers, Ltd. London, undated. (Estimated date of
publication 1922; not after 1924).
-5 “Helen Cadbury and Charles M. Alexander”
by Simon Fox. Marshall Pickering. London, 1989.
-6 Richard Taylor and Edward Parker of the
City of London Phonograph & Gramophone Society were most helpful here.
-7 Alan Kelly: HMV Matrix series, CD-ROM
MAT103. Gaisberg masters, 1903-1921. Get details from: akark@dsl.pipex.com
-8 A Zonophone listing (and many more
publications) have been made by the CLPGS. http://www.clpgs.org.uk
-9 The following is a transcription of the writing
on CMA’s headstone.
Charles M Alexander
II Timothy 2:15
Born at Meadow, Tennessee, U.S.A. on Oct.
24 1867.
Went home from “Tennesee” Moor Green
Lane, Birmingham on Oct 13 1920.
-
“When by the gift of his infinite grace
I am accorded in Heaven a place,
Just to be there and to look on his face
Will through the ages be a glory for me.”
-
If we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him…
-
For the Lord himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout… and the dead in Christ shall rise first : Then we which
are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them .. to meet the Lord
in the air : and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one
another with these words.
I Thessalonians IV 13-20.
All
the photographs in sepia were taken from the book in –4 above. Other
photographs were taken by the author in May 2004. The scans of record labels
are from the author’s collection unless otherwise credited.
Notwithstanding
any of the above, if any of this material be otherwise copyright, it will be
withdrawn upon request.
© Norman
Field, June 2004.
Revised
20th September 2006.
Revised
11th April 2009.