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A SHORT HISTORY OF THE CHOIR

The Choir was founded on 2 July 1931.  J R Green, Tom Johnson and H H Thomas who were members of Barrow Working Men's Club & Institute approached other members of the Club who were interested in singing and they were successful in forming the nucleus of a Male Voice Choir.

H H Thomas was appointed Conductor and at the first rehearsal on 9 July 1931 in the Abbey Road Club, 25 choristers presented themselves.  The Choir had immediate successes gaining first place awards at Barrow in Furness and Workington Musical Festivals.  In addition to competitive singing, the Choir assisted local and national charitable organisations by performing in concerts without payment.

Due to the Second World War, the activities of the Choir were suspended from April 1941 to January 1945 when operations were once more resumed on similar lines as before.

In 1946 the Choir was invited to broadcast on BBC radio in conjunction with Vickers-Armstrong Shipyard Band in the feature "Sounding Brass and Voices", whilst in 1951 it appeared, along with several well known national choirs and brass bands at the Royal Albert Hall London, in the inaugural presentation and broadcast of "The Rainbow", a tone poem by Christopher Hassle, with music by T Wood.

The Choir took part in one or two competitive festivals every year with many successes, winning the prestigious Blackpool Festival in 1969, under the baton of Gilbert Uren.   In 1982 the Choir was invited to take part in a television programme called A Grand Sing and emerged as winners of the Male Voice Class.

At present the choir performs around 15 concerts a year, and in 2000 took part in 2 mass male voice concerts for the new millennium, one at one at Whitehaven with 300 voices and one at Manchester with 2000 voices.

2001 was our 70th birthday and we made it a special year by staging a bumper concert at Barrow's theatre venue Forum 28 and holding extra social events.

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