Paper 27

The Dance Collections of William Campbell

Contributed by Paul Cooper, Research Editor

William Campbell was a London based composer and publisher of dance publications, probably of Scottish descent. He was active over a roughly 35 year period spanning the end of the 18th and the start of the 19th centuries. His publications were of an unusually high quality; in this paper we'll investigate his works, his associates, and his influence over London's social dancing of the period.

Figure 1. Campbell's Trade Card (possibly). Courtesy of the British Museum.

Campbell's Career

Reliable biographical details for Campbell are scarce; he began publishing from around 1778, was active through to about 1815, and moved address at least 6 times. He printed collections on behalf of several dancing masters and went on to publish his own premium collections of dances from around 1786. Doane's 1794 Musical Directory lists him as being a player of the Viola and Violoncello, it also indicates that he had played in the grand performances at Westminster Abbey.

He moved address within London on numerous occasions. He was at 93 Berwick Street, Soho c.1778 to c.1782; 11, New Street, Covent Garden c.1782 to c.1793; 8, Dean Street, Soho c.1793 to c.1803; 4, Market Row, East Street, St. James's Market c.1803 to 1809; 37, New Compton Street, Soho c.1809 to c.1810; 31, King Street, Soho c.1810 to c.1814; 32 Dean Street, Soho, c.1815. These dates are estimates constructed from the pattern of addresses printed on his publications at their probable publication dates. For a brief period c.1795-1796 Campbell also promoted the business of Thomas Dodd (Musical Instrument Maker) at his vacated Covent Garden address on the covers of his publications, perhaps Dodd was a former employee who went on to run his own business.

He printed occasional dance collections on behalf of John Gow, C. Feuillade and Nicholas Lemaire (see Figure 2), his most consistent and lasting collaboration however was with Francis Werner. Werner published annual collections of Cotillions, Country Dances and Minuets through Campbell between about 1778 and 1785, these collections were of a high quality, they were amongst the best that were being sold in London. Werner died either in late 1785 or in 1786 (Morning Chronicle, 5th June 1786) thereby ending their collaboration. Werner's immediate successor was his assistant Martin Platts, Platts went on to publish through the much larger firm of Longman and Broderip rather than through Campbell. Campbell would have found himself without a premium annual collection to sell from this 1785 date. This may have been the trigger Campbell needed to launch his own series of premium dance collections. Campbell's new series of annual publications was issued from around 1786 through to around 1812, we'll study them shortly.

Note: John Fentum, a rival publisher, attempted to continue Werner's collection posthumously from his own musical warehouse from 1787. Fentum began his series of publications at number XIX, one after the final Werner publication, he indicated that he intends continuing this work in the same manner as the late Francis Werner. Fentum ceased referencing Werner on the covers of his publications in the early 1790s. Campbell must have had some form of professional collaboration with Fentum, the final plate of Campbell's c.1804 Book 19 indicates that it was engraved by J Fentum. It's possible that Fentum's business engraved the plates for all of Campbell's publications, at least until Fentum's death in 1806.

Campbell, like many other dance publishers in London at the time, printed two different series of dance collections. There was a cheap annual series of Twenty-Four Country Dances For The Year .... which ran between at least 1782 and 1798, also a premium collection aimed at the more discerning customers. The cheap format consisted of 24 country dances with a treble-score printed two dances per-page in oblong octavo format, they cost 6 pence per book. The premium publications were printed in quarto, each tune having both a treble and bass score; the tunes were of variable length and the books cost 2 shillings and 6 pence each. It's this premium collection that I find to be of most interest.

Figure 2. A publication by Mr Lemaire, 1783, printed and sold by Campbell.

Campbell issued what may have been intended as the first of a further series c.1808 (date uncertain), it was partially composed by Miss Weippert, and was titled No. 1 of Campbell's new and favorite original dances, strathspeys, reels &c. I'm not aware of any further editions having been published after this initial offering.

At some point Campbell's business was wound up, his publishing plates found their way into the possession of one of London's more successful music publishers, Robert Birchall. Campbell reprinted his premium collections on several occasions (perhaps to update the publication address on their covers), and Birchall did so too c.1815. Birchall died in 1819 (Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser, 21st December 1819), it's likely that this marked the end of Campbell's career, if indeed he was still living at that date. Many surviving editions of Campbell's collections date to these later reprints, the covers of some indicate that they were printed by Birchall. The fact that these collections were reprinted, or at least had their covers updated, is a hint to their success and popularity; presumably there was a market for the older collections many years after their initial publication. For example, the copy of Book 1 in Figure 3 is clearly not as first produced, it advertises the first 9 volumes of the collection on the cover; Campbell probably redesigned the cover when he changed address c.1793. Campbell and Birchall may have been partners at an earlier date; an advertisement for Campbell's 16th Collection published in 1801 (Morning Chronicle, 18th June 1801) describes the book as being Printed and sold by W. Campbell, No. 8, Dean Street, Soho; and at Mr. Birchall's Musical Circulating Library, No. 133, New Bond-street.

Campbell's description of his own occupation changed over time. Figure 2 shows a 1783 Campbell publication for Nicholas Lemaire, available at Campbell's Music Shop; a footnote adds of Campbell: Music Provided for Balls and Asembles in town or Countery on the shortest Notice. Campbell's 1799 insurance records record his occupation as music seller; the cover of the c.1810 Book 25 describe his occupation as Musician, and an 1810 newspaper advertisement offering a piano for sale describes him as a Teacher of Music (Morning Post, 27th August 1810). Some of his later publications included the footnote Music Provided for Balls, Assemblies, &c in Town or Country, on Due Notice. The 1810 sale of his piano at ten guineas under the original price, may coincide with the pending closure of the business and transfer of assets to Birchall; I've struggled to find any information about him after that date. At least one further publication was issued under his name, Campbells Favorite Set of Country Dances & Strathspey Reels &c, for the Year 1815; there's no hint that this was published through Birchall, so the transfer of his assets may have been shortly thereafter.

Dating Campbell's Collections

Campbell didn't provide publication dates for most of his premium dance collections. It can be difficult to determine accurate dates for undated works, especially those that were reprinted several times; access to the nearly complete collection has enabled a plausible chronology to be established.

Figure 3. Reprint of Campbell's c.1786 1st Book

The only volume I've studied to carry an explicit date is Book 13, the year 1798 is printed on the cover. Any publication that claims to be for the year 1798 might perhaps have been published towards the end of the preceeding year, but it's sufficiently accurate for most purposes. The content of that collection includes tunes which are clearly named in reference to the 1797 Battle of Camperdown; such titles include Lord Duncans Victory, Sir Henry Trollope's Fancy, The Royal Artillery Whim or the 11th October and The Venerable. A collection featuring such tunes couldn't have been produced prior to the end of 1797, and would be out of date if printed later than 1798. The 1798 date for Book 13 seems secure.

The other firmly established dates involve Book 10 and Book 16. Book 10, unlike the other volumes in the collection, was registered for copyright purposes at Stationer's Hall, on the 31st October 1795. A copy of Book 9 was also registered on the same day. We might infer from this that the 10th book was published in 1795, and a copy of the slightly older 9th book was taken along from stock. One of the tunes is named The Royal Wedding, presumably in reference to the 1795 marriage of the then Prince George to Caroline of Brunswick. Campbell published an advert mentioning the 16th Book as New Music in the Morning Chronicle, 18th June 1801.

If we were to plot a graph of publication numbers over time, and draw a straight line between the 10th book in 1795, the 13th book in 1798, and the 16th in 1801, it offers the satisfying prospect of one publication per year. This starts c.1786 with Book 1, and places Book 25 as being published c.1810. These estimated dates are not established fact, but they do match tune names to historical events in a neat fashion. For example, the c.1806 Book 21 contains numerous references to the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar; the c.1810 Book 25 references the 1809 Battle of Talavera; the c.1800 Book 15 references the Duke of Rutland's birthday party, he turned 21 in 1799 and could have enjoyed a significant celebration; the c.1788 Book 3 may reference General Elliot being appointed Governor of Gibraltar in 1787. The starting date of c.1786 also fits neatly with the final publication date of Francis Werner's collections (which were published through Campbell) in 1785, suggesting that the end of one series coincided with the start of the successor series. A further clue can be found in a 1787 publication called Nina, the back of which lists the New Music available through George Goulding; the catalogue includes Campbell's Collections of Reels, Strathspeys, and Country Dances, with Figures, Two Books, presumably the first two of Campbell's collection dated c.1786 and c.1787. Such ties provide confidence that the chronology is probably accurate to within a year.

Campbell also published collections of Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year .... between at least 1782 and 1798. These collections show surprisingly little content overlap with the premium collections and are of unremarkable quality. The collection for 1790 has a few tunes in common with the c.1788 Book 3 and the c.1789 Book 4, and the collection for 1792 has several tunes in common with the c.1790 Book 5, little other overlap can be discerned in the collections I've studied.

Unusual Dances in Campbell's Collections

A distinguishing characteristic of Campbell's collections is the occasional inclusion of dances other than the simple Country Dance. Such exotica mark his collections as being more than a strictly formulaic collection of Country Dances.

Figure 4. Campbell's La Boulanger from his c.1789 4th Book

The c.1788 Book 3 includes a Cotillion called La Pastorale. We've animated an arrangement of the version Longman & Broderip published in their 1786 Book the VI, Twenty Four New Cotillions. It was said to be a popular Cotillion amongst the dancers at Bath. Campbell's version is almost identical to that of Longman (the bass line differs), so he wasn't the first to publish this dance; whether he did so with permission is unclear. Longman's collection is of particular interest as it records prototypical versions of most of the Quadrilles of the First Set, but arranged as Cotillions. Campbell's inclusion of La Pastorale suggests that it was a popular Cotillion, or was in the process of becoming so in London.

The c.1789 Book 4 features a circular dance named La Boulanger (see Figure 4) arranged for any number of couples. This dance will be well known to Jane Austen enthusiasts as it was mentioned in Pride and Prejudice and also in one of Austen's 1796 letters to her sister Cassandra. Campbell's version of this dance is one of the first to have been published in Britain, though an earlier arrangement can be found in Francis Werner's 1780 13th Book (a book that was published through Campbell). This dance was often used to close Balls in Regency Britain. For example, Lady Sarah de Crespigny's masked ball in 1814 featured the boulanger, at a quarter past five (in the morning) to close the proceedings (Morning Post, 15th January 1814); it was reported of an Assembly at Chapel Field House in 1821 that It was three o'clock in the morning ere the music ceased, and the company withdrew, it ended with Sir Roger de Coverley and Le Boulanger (Norfolk Chronicle, 22nd December 1821); the dancing master Mr McKorkell closed his 1805 Pupils' Ball with La Boulangere (an alternative spelling of the same dance, Northampton Mercury, 16th November 1805). A Ball at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton in 1817 was reported to have closed at nearly 5am with the Boulanger (Morning Chronicle, 20th January 1817). It is Campbell's music for La Boulanger (of unknown composition) that became associated with this iconic dance in later decades, the tune would even be reused for the 1820 Quadrilling song (an observation for which I'm indebted to Cas Sloan from Green Ginger). We've investigated this dance further elsewhere, you might like to follow the link to read more.

The 1798 Book 13 includes what may be a Medley arrangement. It's arranged for Go To The Devil And Shake Yourself; a single set of figures are provided and a footnote indicates they can be used with any of four separate unnamed tunes. It's not clear whether all four tunes were intended to be used in a medley sequence, but they all share a common title. Any such confusion is removed in the c.1799 Book 14 in which two tunes called Jackson's Dream and Roodulum are described in combination as an Irish Medley; each tune is provided with its own set of figures, but they're clearly intended to work together. Tunes were sometimes combined into medleys; for example, it's reported of the Marchioness of Abercorn's Ball in 1801 (Morning Post, 20th May 1801) that At three, the Ball recommenced with 'Lord Dalkeith' and 'Lady Mary Ramsay', a medley, called for by Lady Georgina Gordon; the Countess of Shaftesbury's ball in 1810 (Morning Post, 19th May 1810) featured a Waltz Medley, and Lady Caroline Barham's Ball in 1812 (Morning Post, 22nd June 1812) was led off with a Scotch Medley, 'Mrs McLeod of Rasay' and Another medley followed, 'Draycott House'. Medley arrangements were widely available in Scottish publications of this date, but it's unusual to find them in a London publication.

Figure 5. Campbell's Explanation of the Country Bumpkin from his c.1799 14th Book

The c.1803 Book 18 includes a version of Sir Roger de Coverley. This dance didn't follow the normal conventions for a Country Dance; a typical dance boxes the dancing figures so as to remain within the minor set of three couples, but in Sir Roger de Coverley the leading couple cross over between each of the couples in the entire longways set then lead up to the top from the very bottom of the set. This might require additional strains of music to allow time for that leading couple to travel so far, the musicians would have to remain aware of the dancing and repeat phrases accordingly. Campbell's arrangement of the dance is simpler than the better known version in Thomas Wilson's 1808 Analysis of Country Dancing though it shares the same crossing figure that Wilson used. It went on to be a very popular dance in Regency London. Campbell's version is perhaps an intermediate form of the dance later promoted by Wilson and even the novelist Charles Dickens. We've investigated this dance further elsewhere, you might like to follow the link to read more.

The c.1807 Book 22 features a dance called The Russian Ambassador's Waltz, the title is extended to add (With the Original German Figure). The dance is a typical Country Dance, but the figures include a description of a waltz turn in abnormal detail. It's an unusually early example of a British publication describing the Waltz. Campbell wrote: The 1st Gent Set to the 2d Lady, & both go quite Round with his Right hand Round the Lady's Waist; & the Lady's Left hand Round the Gent's Waist at the Same time; the Gent takes the Lady with his Left hand by her Right hand. The Waltz was a new and controversial dance form which had been gaining in popularity in Britain since the 1790s, Campbell's description of the hold is helpfully detailed, and adds doubt to dancing master Thomas Wilson's claims to have invented the Waltz Country Dance in 1815. Campbell's choreography is the first clear evidence I know of for a Country Dance being performed using a Waltz figure, as opposed to applying normal figures in Waltz time.

There are many other interesting dances within the Campbell collections, but these signature dances stand out as being especially interesting. Many of them could have had their first publication in London within Campbell's collections; their success could be seen as a tribute to the quality and popularity of Campbell's work.

Campbell's Named Composers

Figure 6. Example Scottish Dance Tune Collections, courtesy of the Highland Music Trust

Campbell, unlike many of his contemporary publishers, identified some of the composers responsible for his tunes. Such identifications are sporadic and inconsistent, but offer an insight into his sources. Of the 132 tunes with named composers I've studied, 47 of them are credited to William Campbell himself. A further two are declared to be Set by Campbell. Given that Campbell was careful to claim credit for the tunes he composed, it's reasonable to assume that the uncredited tunes were not composed by him. At least 31 further composers are named; a precise count is challenging as it's not always obvious if variants of names imply the same person (for example, are Mr Marshall and William Marshall the same person?).

The second most credited contributor was John Erhardt Weippert with 11 tunes (and not to be confused with John Michael Weippert who composed a further 4). Duncan Macintyre was credited with contributing 11 tunes (adjusting for variations in spelling), and George Jenkins Junior 7 (not to be confused with George Jenkins Senior with 2 more). Several members of the Gow family were also named; we've written about the immensely successful Gow and Jenkins families before). Many more composers were credited, around 13 were recognised for just a single tune. Most of the named composers were Scottish, including: Daniel Dow, Robert Mackintosh, Abraham MacIntosh, William Marshall, John Pringle and John Riddell (links are to their biographies at tunearch.org). Many of the tunes had previously been published in Scottish collections, though Campbell could have been the first to publish such tunes in London.

The bulk of the tunes were not credited with a composer, Campbell's sources for such tunes are not always obvious. Campbell provided a bass line for each of his scores, though other publications frequently omit them; presumably Campbell composed those accompaniments himself where required. The presence of a bass line for each tune is part of what makes Campbell's collections so interesting.

Campbell also released a later publication c.1808 (date uncertain) with the title No. 1 of Campbell's new and favorite original dances, strathspeys, reels &c, in which one of the tunes was compos'd by Miss Weippert. The Weippert family are especially interesting collaborators.

The Weippert Family

The Weipperts were an important family in London's musical scene. They, over several generations, were publishers of dances, musicians, dancing masters and band leaders. Three prominent members of the family all shared the name John Weippert which can make disambiguation complicated.

Johann Erhardt Weippert (1766-1823) was a German immigrant naturalised as a British citizen in 1801, and famed as a composer and player of the harp. Campbell's early references to Weippert are to John Erhardt. JE's band often played for concerts and dancing at Margate, examples include the Duke of St Alban's Fete (Morning Post, 6th October 1802) and duets with John Gow (another of Campbell's composers) in 1818 (Kentish Weekly Post or Canterbury Journal, 1st September 1818). He went on to become a Governor of the Royal Society of Musicians, prior to his death in 1823.

Figure 7. Miss Weippert by John Russell, courtesy of pastellists.com.

Johann Michael Weippert (1776-1831) was JE's younger brother. He followed his brother into the same trade; Campbell differentiated between the two brothers from c.1799 by referring to them as E Weippert and M Weippert. Other sources refer to JE Weippert and JM Weippert, though many more refer ambiguously either to Weippert or John Weippert. JM went on to publish many Quadrille sets in London in the 1820s, and was appointed Professor of the Harp in ordinary to His Majesty in 1827 (The Times, 26th October 1827). JM published four sets of waltzes in 1818 composed expressly by Mr J.M. Weippert, for Mr Paine's Band, and performed at Almack's and the Argyle Rooms (Morning Post, 21st February 1818) and a Grand Set of Quadrilles, performed by Paine's Band in 1819 (Morning Chronicle, 8th May 1819). His publications reverted to using the name John Weippert from c.1823, following his Brother's death.

One of the Weipperts (it's unclear which) was advertised in 1801 as accompanying Robert Mackintosh (another of Campbell's composers) at Mr Allen's City Assemblies in London (Morning Post, 17th March 1801). These events were described as being a Select Assembly and Dancing Academy to the Lovers of Pure Scotch Dancing; Allen had Determined to spare no expense to render it superior in every respect to any other of the kind, and engaged Mr Mackintosh, from Edinburgh, whose animating notes are the life and soul of the Scotch Nobility's private dances, and is esteemed the first performer in England for strathspeys and reels. Mr Wippart plays the Harp. Whichever of the Weipperts is implied, it is clear that they (along with Campbell) mixed with the elite of London's Scottish musical and dancing society.

Both Weipperts had children who followed them into musical careers, including JM's son George Weippert who advertised his services as a dancing master from 1823 (The Times, 16th April 1823), and JE's son John Thomas Lewis Weippert who continued publishing Quadrilles in the 1830s under the name John Weippert after the death of his Uncle (and concurrently under the name J.T. Weippert); JTL also led a successful Quadrille Band, achieved Royal patronage, and had musical sons of his own (including another John who went on to run a music shop in the 1840s). The Weippert Band was even mentioned in Queen Victoria's journals of the late 1830s.

John Erhardt also had a daughter named Julia (see Figure 7), she was the Miss Weippert who composed the Marquis of Huntleys Hornpipe in No. 1 of Campbell's new and favorite original dances, strathspeys, reels &c c.1808 (date uncertain). She was said as a youth to have been a musical prodigy, A Duetto, by Weippert, on the pedal harp, and Miss Weippert (a child of eleven years of age) on the grand piano-forte, was admirably executed (Morning Post, 12th September 1805) and hosted her own annual concerts from at least 1808 (Morning Post, 13th September 1808), That young Lady played a solo on the grand piano forte; and Mr Weippert another on the harp; they were each equaly deserving of praise from the variety of their combinations, and beatifully slow movements. She married the comic actor Mr Lovegrove in 1811 (Lancaster Gazette, 15th May 1811) and died the following year (London Courier, 16th September 1812).

Several further generations of the Weippert family achieved musical success in London. Campbell's publication of one of Miss Weippert's compositions suggests that the Weipperts considered Campbell to be a friend.

Campbell's Influence

Campbell's collections of dances are of an unusually high quality compared to other publications of a similar date. The tunes are rich and varied, printed on a large format of paper, feature a bass line, identify composers and include several exotic dances. They're far from perfect however; the choreographies are often dull, barely fit the music, and the strain markers appear to have been distributed almost at random (the same is true for many other pre-Wilsonian country dance collections, so it's not unexpected). It's not clear where Campbell sourced his dancing figures from; did he create them himself, or employ someone else to do so? His 1782 24 Country Dances publication was explicitly declared to be choreographed by Francis Werner (who published Cotillion collections through Campbell until his death c.1786) but it's unclear who Campbell worked with thereafter. He may have choreographed his own figures. But how influential were Campbell's books?

Figure 8. Amateurs in Music, 1794, courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library

There were many music shops in Georgian London that published annual collections of dances, some especially popular tunes were published by almost all of them. I've compared Campbell's catalogue to those of his contemporaries in an attempt to measure his influence - did he publish tunes before the competition, at around the same date, or later? Was he an innovator, or a follower?

Performing this analysis required a large collection of historical dance publications to work with. Such a collection was established by combining my own notes with information from the British Library, the VWML and the CDSS, in order to create a large sample of such tune books. The data remains incomplete; for example, I have access to 24 of Campbell's annual collections but not the entire set. In many cases I only know the names of the tunes in a given non-Campbellian publication, so two tunes with the same name can't be compared to ensure that they are genuinely the same. Nonetheless, the data is statistically significant. Any errors caused by false-positive name clashes should cancel out over a large enough data sample (i.e. when comparing Campbell to any other single publisher, there should be an equal number of false-positives to Campbell's advantage and disadvantage).

The following table summarises the results. Each row compares Campbell's publications to the dated publications of another major publisher. The dates of publication are taken from the covers of the works; if, for example, a collection claims to be For The Year 1799, it's assumed that it was either published in 1799 or towards the end of 1798. If both publishers appear to have published a tune in the same year then we can't gauge who was first, otherwise the table presents a tally of precedence. The estimated dates for Campbell's own collections are thought to be reliable but have the potential to be inaccurate. The numbers in parentheses show the results if we assume the estimated Campbellian publication dates are an entire year too early, they can be used to infer the degree of confidence in the results. Trading names changed over time, I've ignored that for the purposes of this comparison, merging successor businesses together where appropriate. The absolute numbers in the table below are not especially important (missing data and false-positives will ensure that most are provably wrong), it's the emergent trends that are significant.

The observed pattern is that Campbell usually published tunes before his contemporaries. That's not to say that they copied from Campbell, just that his publications helped to influence what became popular such that other publishers would want to republish them; we might say that he was ahead of the curve in promoting popular tunes. This is most noticeable in comparison to the Cahusac and Preston collections, they frequently published tunes the year after it's estimated that Campbell published them. Most of the firms in the table above were active throughout the period that Campbell was publishing, so Campbell didn't receive any pre-existence advantages (firms that started later would have to catch-up with publishing popular tunes from the recent past, skewing the results to their disadvantage).

The Longman and Broderip collections are a little different. They often published tunes ahead of Campbell; their results are skewed by just a single publication, their Twenty-Four Country Dances for the Year 1796 contained 7 tune names in common with Campbell's 1795 Book 10. That's unlikely to have been coincidental. They also published a separate and undated Selection of Country Dances, Reels &c. which ran to at least 6 editions, omitted from the table above due to dating uncertainty. This second collection has a large overlap with the Campbell collections. I date them from 1791 to 1796 based on the 4th edition having been registered for copyright at Stationer's Hall in 1794. The c.1791 first edition of this collection contains at least 14 tunes (out of 24) which were first published by Campbell in his books 1 to 3; the c.1792 second edition contains at least 20 tunes (out of 24) which were first published by Campbell in his books 3 to 6. Later editions do not share this overlap. It appears that those two specific works were directly influenced by Campbell, they don't merely overlap, their content is identical (the tunes, accompaniments and dancing figures are identical; even the errors are faithfully copied from Campbell). Things get even more confused if Campbell's 24 Country Dances for 1796 is compared with Longman & Broderip's 24 Country Dances for 1795; the copies of these works at the British Library are mostly identical (to the extent that the same plates seem to have been used for printing both publications); a similar statement can be made when comparing Campbell's collection for 1793 with Longman & Broderip's collection for 1791. It's not clear why they overlap, but it's not accidental and could imply a collaboration. Perhaps they made an agreement to share plates with each other, or perhaps the cover and contents of publications have been muddled in the archives. With the exception of these specific highly-similar collections, the bulk of their publications have little overlap with Campbell, they were sometimes ahead of Campbell in publishing new tunes.

Many other music stores operated in London throughout this period and printed collections of Country Dances. I lack sufficient data to perform an analysis for Goulding and Dalmaine, Thomas Budd etc.. The firm of Button and Whitaker were especially important in the Regency period but they didn't begin publishing until the very end of Campbell's career, there's little potential for overlap. The awareness and relevance of Copyright legislation grew in the 1810s, that may have had a chilling effect on the republication of tunes across vendors; Campbell's publications flourished at a time when most tunes were still considered (to the extent that the issue was considered at all) to be in the public domain, they could be widely reprinted without attribution. We've considered the issues of Copyright for Country Dances in a previous research paper.

Campbell's Premium Publications

The table below lists Campbell's publications, with links to source material where available. Not many of these publications are available on the internet at time of writing; if you have copies, do consider scanning or photoing them, and sharing them with the community of enthusiasts who enjoy recreating these dances. If you'd like any assistance in doing that, or have anything else to share, do please contact us.

Campbell's annual collections of Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year .... are omitted from this list, but appear in a separate table below. This list also omits any publications printed on behalf of another named dancing master (e.g. those of Francis Werner, Nicholas Lemaire, etc.). This list is based on the collections that Campbell published in his own name.

Campbell's Budget Publications

The table below lists Campbell's annual 24 Country Dances for the Year .... publications. It's an incomplete list, if you have access to further information do please contact us. It's possible that some of the missing publications were never in fact published; for example, the c.1786 death of Francis Werner may have interfered, if so, publication was resumed after a brief intermission. It's not clear when this series came to an end, but I'm not aware of any evidence for them continuing into the 19th Century.

The title of these works changed slightly for the 1791 edition. A curious change in emphasis can be seen; the works for years prior to 1791 featured proper Tunes and Directions to each Dance, and those from 1791 forwards were Country Dances with their proper Figures. This may hint at a broader shift in emphasis within society; the earlier titles hint that a Dance is a combination of Tunes and Directions, but the later publications lose that hint, instead implying that the Dance is the Tune, and that the proper figures are merely attached. This may or may not be of significance, but it's a curiosity. Dancers in the Regency era Assembly Halls didn't limit their dancing to those figures published in tune books, they were encouraged to Call any figures they liked to a given tune. The 1791 change in title may be a reflection of a broader societal shift. There again, it may mean nothing; the phrase with their proper figures had been used for the premium collections consistently since c.1780.

London's Country Dancing tune books didn't achieve genuine excellence until an important c.1812 partnership arose between Button and Whitaker (an innovative new music shop), and Thomas Wilson (a systematic and prolific reformer of the Country Dancing industry). Their story will be continued in another research paper.