General Graham's Waltz

In about 1810 Goulding, D'Almaine, Potter & Co. published 'Goulding & Co.'s Collection of new & favorite. Country Dances, Reels & Waltzes, arranged for the Piano Forte and Flute or Patent Flageolet, by John Parry.'

One of the dances in this collection was Genl Graham's Waltz

George Goulding was probably in business before 1784. His earliest surviving sheet music is from 1787.

His address at this time was at "The Haydn's Head, No. 6. James Street, Covent Garden," and it is from this address he began to issue annual sets of dances.

Early in 1799 he removed to 45, Pall Mall, and took partners.

The new firm was Goulding & Co., or Goulding, Phipps, & D'Almaine, and they became music sellers to the Prince and Princess of Wales.

In 1803 they took additional premises at 76, St, James Street, and in 1804-5 had given both these addresses up, and removed to 117, New Bond Street, with an agency at 7, Westmoreland Street., Dublin.

In 1808-9 they moved again to 124 New Bond Street. About this time Phipps retired and the firm became Goulding, D'Almaine, & Potter.

John Parry was born in Denbigh, in northern Wales, the son of a stonemason. He taught himself to play the fife on an instrument that he made himself from a piece of cane, and a dance-master who lived nearby taught him the clarinet.

John Parry

In 1793, Parry joined the Denbighshire militia's volunteers' band, becoming its conductor in 1797. He became a master of the harp, the clarinet, and the flageolet and learned to play many other instruments.

In 1807, he left the militia and settled in London.

By 1809, he was appointed the musical director of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and composed much of the music performed there. It is probably this connection that caused Gouldings to use him as an arranger.

Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch, had been promoted to the rank of major general, in the summer of 1809, to command a division under Lord Chatham, in the fatal Walcheren expedition. An attack of malaria fever, however, compelled him to return home.

General Graham

On his recovery he was raised to the rank of Lieutenant General and was sent to Spain, to take command of the British and Portuguese troops in Cádiz.

The suggested figures for this dance are fairly simple:

1st and 2nd ladies and first and second gentlemen change places, down the middle and swing corners

The London dancing master Thomas Wilson's book 'An Analysis of Country Dancing' published in 1808 explains what was meant by swinging corners at this period.