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On the outbreak of World War Two, Bournemouth town council virtually disbanded its municipal orchestra. In response a number of individuals, notably Maisie Aldrich, the daughter of a Christchurch solicitor, formed a small orchestra to perform for the south coast town and surrounding area.
The conductor Reginald Goodall (1901-1990), after a musical education at Lincoln Cathedral, the Hamilton Conservatory and the Royal College of Music, was Organist at St Alban's Holborn, 1929-1936. His unorthodox outlook and Mosleyite political views and sympathies hindered his attempts find employment as a professional conductor and he was unemployed at the start of the war.
Miss Aldrich sought Goodall's assistance with the Wessex Philharmonic and the orchestra performed its first concert on 8 Dec 1939. Thereafter, Goodall directed over 300 concerts over the next three years and two months, and in the process transforming a group of amateur/semi-professional musicians into a competent orchestra, who often peformed works by many modern British composers, and frequently in two concerts a day. A number of the musicians were refugees of German origin, and as foreign nationals were not allowed within five miles of the coast under wartime security measures, the collection documents the efforts to circumvent these rules.
The collection charts the foundation, development and work of the orchestra and provides important biographical material on Goodall, which include his political views as well as his professional activities. On leaving the orchestra in 1943, he spend six months as an army storeman and then joined Sadler's Wells Opera, where he conducted the premiere of Britten's 'Peter Grimes' on 7 Jun 1945. His career thereafter was spent in relative obscurity, but enjoyed a revival in the 1970s with his conducting of Wagner's Ring cycle.