Today, November 30, marks 50 years since the death of Gramophone’s founder, and editor for nearly 40 years, Sir Compton Mackenzie (sadly, he missed the magazine’s 50th anniversary which fell in April 1973). Our January 1973 issue, carried these three tributes: by Anthony Pollard, former Publisher and Editor; Percy Wilson, Technical Editor and Roger Wimbush, a long-standing contributor to the The Gramophone (as it was titled until June 1969).

(For a fascinating account of Mackenzie’s work as a novelist, we warmly recommend an article by Andrew Doyle published today by UnHerd)

Born January 17, 1883; died November 30, 1972

At this moment I can think of nothing sadder than to open this first number of our Golden Jubilee Year with the news of the passing of our founder, Sir Compton Mackenzie.

The celebration of our Golden Jubilee was very close to Sir Compton's heart and it was an event to which he had been looking forward with great enthusiasm for the past few years, particularly as in this month of January he would also have celebrated his 90th birthday.

It was in 1922, living on Herm in the Channel Islands, that Sir Compton had spent some £400 in acquiring every single record from the HMV, Columbia and Vocalion catalogues. His enthusiasm for these records was such that Robin Legge, the music critic of The Daily Telegraph, invited him to write an article for his page. The article provoked such a rich response from readers that he decided to found a magazine. Thus, in April 1923, the first issue of The Gramophone appeared, written largely by Sir Compton himself under various signatures.

With the help of his wife, Faith, and his brother-in-law, Christopher Stone, the magazine soon established itself as essential reading matter for all serious collectors of gramophone records and Sir Adrian Boult, in a contribution to our forthcoming Jubilee Book, comments, ‘I well remember the foundation of The Gramophone by Sir Compton Mackenzie and Christopher Stone. It seemed to me to mark the turning point: to establish the gramophone as an instrument of value whereas it had begun its life as an amusing toy with very squeaky results.’

It was only in the post-war period that Sir Compton's contributions to The Gramophone became less frequent and although his involvement in our day-to-day activities gradually diminished, his interest in The Gramophone never wavered and his advice was always readily available to those who asked.

I last saw Sir Compton in September: his eyesight was all but gone but his mind was as sharp and as perceptive as ever – displaying that astounding memory for which he became, rightly, famous. A man of many parts – actor, Royal Marine officer, author of over 100 books, Siamese cat lover, keen gardener, raconteur, radio and TV personality – he was more than anything else a warm, lovable man. Always true to his word, he engendered loyalty and respect from all those around him. Anthony Pollard

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I first met Compton Mackenzie in 1924, at the instigation of his brother-in-law, Christopher Stone, when they invited me to become Technical Adviser to The Gramophone which they had founded in 1923. After that we became close friends, as my contribution to the Jubilee Book to be published by The Gramophone later this year will indicate.

I recall vividly my first journey to Jethou for a week's stay with Monty in 1925. We played records, and argued and argued, about the future of sound reproduction, or audio, as it is now called. At that time, he wrote all his novels and articles to the background of music reproduced from records on his Balmain machine. All his writing was done, in the first instance, in longhand from his elaborate Oxford (Minty) chair, between the hours of about 11pm to 4 or 5am. His wife, Faith (sister of Christopher Stone), who became known in the pages of The Gramophone as F Sharp, took turns with Monty's secretary, Nellie Boyte, to play the records.

But my visits, and they were many, interrupted the usual routine, and Monty and I stayed up into the small hours talking. He did the most of that, recounting to me, in a most entertaining fashion, his experiences in the First World War, when he was a British Intelligence Officer in the Middle East. Some of his stories he has published in his Autobiography and in his other Memoirs and I shall never forget his dramatic impersonations of some of the British senior officers in that campaign. He was a wonderful actor, like his mother and father before him.

It is puzzling to me, but perhaps significant, that few of the radio or television broadcasts announcing his passing even mentioned his service to audio by his enthusiasm in founding The Gramophone. I myself believe that in doing so he saved the Recording Industry from stagnation. Certainly he attracted to his support many enthusiasts like myself. Certainly, too, his monthly analyses of record releases dominated the commercial market in a way that no other commentator has succeeded in doing. His editorials, difficult as they became to obtain by the London Editor, save at the last possible moment for publication, will surely last as luminous examples of musical criticism. Percy Wilson

•••

Although I had only met Sir Compton occasionally, like everybody else in the least connected with The Gramophone his influence was all-pervasive. Just how pervasive that was is being made especially clear every month in preparing the ‘Looking Back’ section of the ‘Here and There’ column. To appreciate all that he meant to this journal it is paradoxically necessary to forget the gramophone. Here was a master of the English novel, a classical scholar, an explorer of the material world and of the human spirit, whose multifarious enthusiasms mercifully embraced an invention, which he saw as a means of popularising great music. That was the vision in 1923, and it was the devotion of a distinguished man of letters and of a professional writer, who was at the same time an amateur of civilisation, that steered The Gramophone to its post-war position. So far as music was concerned, the paper was written for amateurs and directed by an amateur. Had it been otherwise – had the wheel been in the hands of a boffin or of a pedagogue – it is unlikely that we should today be entering on our 50th year.

When Hensley Henson, Bishop of Durham and another writer of fine prose, died, it was said of him that he was a man of magnificent prejudices. That was true of Sir Compton, who was a passionate man, whose monthly editorials in these pages provoked a mass of correspondence and lively debate. His paper was his pulpit, and his increasing congregation enjoyed the privilege of arguing out the sermon. His editorship was unique in British journalism. He saw music, as he saw painting and sculpture, as part of our heritage, and as something that could bring comfort and joy to every man. Nothing saddened him more than to receive letters from unemployed men who were forced to give up the gramophone. His energy was immense. Was it 111 books, or 112? His history of the Indian Army in the last war, involving 18 months of difficult journeys undertaken in his sixties, was a remarkable achievement. Blessed with good looks and a beautiful speaking voice, he walked many worlds with both grace and sagacity.

Carnival and Sinister Street, both published before the war, are still in print, and the paper he founded is about to celebrate its Golden Jubilee. These are monuments enough. Roger Wimbush