Stanley Shemming (1887-1962)
A Mr. S. Shemming(s) in Ipswich was mentioned several times in Russell Wortley’s correspondence about dulcimers. Unfortunately Wortley never got to meet him, despite the best efforts of Peter Havard, a local teacher who knew Mr Shemming, and was himself interested in the construction of dulcimers. Harvard was trying to arrange a meeting between Russell Wortley and Mr Shemming, but the latter fell ill and died before this could happen.
The player was Stanley Robert Shemming, born in December 1887, whose parents had moved to Ipswich in the mid 1880s to a close-knit community called The Grove, where housing had been built for workers at a large brick-making firm. Although not far out of the town centre, the area was quite insular, as it was largely cut off by a short railway line which had been built to transport the bricks. Stanley himself did not initially go into the brickworks, by the age of thirteen he was working on a local farm and by 1911 he had already signed up to the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
Around the same period as Peter Havard was in correspondence about Mr Shemming with Russell Wortley, folk music researchers Des and Shelagh Herring had also come across him and wrote to Russell Wortley in April 1962: ‘The man who still makes dulcimers is Mr S. Shemmings [sic] of 10, Grove Cottages, Henley Road, Ipswich … he is retired and will be only too glad to talk and play to you, he’ll probably try to sell you one! (ex army bandsman).’ In army records, he is listed as a rifleman, not a musician. Stanley’s regiment were in northern France from August 1914 and he was captured at Ypres on 2nd November and subsequently spent much time as a prisoner-of-war. He was demobilised in January 1919. His younger brother Bertram who was killed in action in 1915. Stanley returned to Ipswich after the War, when he went into the brick-making trade, continuing to live at 10, Grove Cottages until his death.
Although the Herrings seemed pretty firmly convinced that Stanley Shemming made dulcimers, and they later talked about ‘Ipswich-made’ dulcimers, Peter Havard described Stanley’s own instrument as ‘a Dallas instrument made in London we believe, about 50 years ago’ (i.e. about 1910). This is the one and only reference to either ‘Ipswich-made’ dulcimers or Dallas brand dulcimers! However they did publish a tutorial book between 1914 and 1926.
Peter Havard had a tuning diagram which had been Stanley’s father’s method. Samuel Shemming was born in Hoxne in north Suffolk in 1859 and moved to Ipswich shortly before his son Stanley’s birth in 1887.
Stanley Shemming died in October 1962.
With thanks to Christine Shackell for the photograph and assistance with the genealogy.
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