NIVEN, HENRY CALVIN (1853-1937)

NIVEN, HENRY CALVIN, musician; b. Newcastle, 19 Dec 1853, s/o James Niven and Susan Hawkes; m. 1877, Martha Robinson, sister of Alexander Robinson; d. Newcastle, 12 Apr 1937.

Henry C. Niven, a nephew of John Niven, studied at the Newcastle Grammar School under John Hardie. He had been playing the piano since childhood, and after he left school he went to Boston to find work in the field of music. He stated that he was employed for two years with a dance orchestra there and then wandered from place to place as a player. He soon came back to Newcastle, however, where he was married in 1877, at age twenty-three. He was enumerated as a farmer in the census of 1891, but he later had a small woodworking factory at which he earned his living.

Niven was a member of the thirteen-piece Newcastle Brass Band when it was formed in 1882 under the leadership of T. M. Stewart, but relations among the members were fractious and the band split up. In 1885 he and one of his brothers organized the Newcastle Cornet Band, which was also short-lived. In 1887 he was engaged to direct the 73rd Battalion Band, as successor to John Templeton. At around the same time he became the organist and choir leader at St James Presbyterian Church in Newcastle. He did not hold any of these positions for long, and in future years his services as a musical leader were not always in demand, but he was active as a band musician for more than thirty years.

Niven was a composer of waltzes and marches. The music for one of his marches for a full band was on display at the Miramichi Exhibition in 1919, and it was stated that he also had waltzes for band and orchestra in process of publication. In 1922 he entered a competition for a new national anthem for Canada. Several years previously he had signed up for a home study program offered by the band music composer Harry L. Alford, who had a music-arranging business in Chicago. He was a student in this program for ten years or more, submitting his compositions (and tuition payments, presumably) to the Chicago organization. He mentioned composing marches called "Belgravia" and "Kensington Garden," and a song entitled "Hark What Do I Hear?" The program culminated in his being certified as a "Master of the Science of Music," at age seventy-four. According to him, only forty-one other Canadians shared the honor. His accomplishments fascinated one Daily Gleaner reporter, who interviewed him several times. The home study program was not one which was recognized in conventional musical circles, however, and no compositions would appear to have been registered in his name.

Niven was married to Martha Robinson until her death occurred a year before his own, but they had no children and may not always have lived together. In 1907 he was arrested and charged with "adultery and unlawful conjugal union" with a younger woman. He was held in jail for six weeks pending trial before the Supreme Court of New Brunswick, but like most other persons brought before the courts in that era he was found not guilty.