No 42 -- Summer 1994 Edited by Michael Walters
by the Editor
A number of years ago Nellie Clarke, a prominent member of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, bequeathed a considerable amount to the Society. At the 1989 AGM I suggested that a way of utilising this might be to publish a memorial volume of selected important papers from the GILBERT AND SULLIVAN JOURNAL. The Committee said they would look into this. At the next year's AGM it was reported that this idea had been rejected. I here reproduce my letters to the Society, which I think are self-explanatory:
22 August 1990
Thank you for your letter of 10 July and the subsequent circular. However, it would appear that my original proposal has become completely garbled by the passage of time. I shall therefore reiterate what I said at the 1989 AGM, and ask that the Committee discuss the matter again from square one.
Very few of the books that have been written on G&S have used any of the valuable research contained in the important papers in the Journal - largely because it is not readily available to them. I therefore proposed that a selection of the important papers should be made (many of the articles in the Journal are trivial or ephemeral) and published in the form of a book, which should be made available to the public (not just to members of the Society, which would be pointless). I suggested that this should be financed with Nellie's money, and that the book should be a permanent memorial to her - to be called something like THE NELLIE CLARKE MEMORIAL VOLUME (a much more permanent memorial than a park bench or a tree). I would of course be happy to assist in the selection of papers.
Incidentally, I specifically asked Claire [Lambert] some years ago who owned copyright on articles in the Journal, and she told me that it was the Society. I assume [**** ****] is the "unofficial legal advice" to which you refer. He would have no particular reason to be sympathetic to such a project.
Even assuming that copyright remains in the hands of the authors, it is very difficult to see why they would object to their work being made available to a wider public, and to their names being given a permanent fame which would otherwise be denied them. By reprinting their work, one would be doing them a service, not the reverse, as implied. The idea that the purpose of the reprinting was "for Society funds" formed no part of my original proposal - nor did I suggest it at the 1990 AGM.
17 September 1990
I am sorry if you are annoyed by my reference to [**** ****], however I emphatically do not retract anything I have said. I believe that it was he who originally recommended to the Society that Nellie's money should be put into a general arts fund of some kind (I forget the exact details). This was queried at an AGM and Philip Plumb recommended that a second opinion should be sought.
I do not recall hearing the words "for funds" when the 1989 minutes were read, but I am happy to accept your word for it that these were said. I did hear "It was pointed out that problems of copyright would arise", but I did not consider at the time that this was sufficiently important to make a fuss about.
At the 1989 AGM, the question of the use of the Nellie Clarke Legacy for the accomodation of the library had not, to the best of my knowledge, been concretely raised. Had this been so, I would have been less likely to have made the suggestion in the first instance. I do accept that it is needful for the library to take precedence. I do not accept that there would necessarily be no interest for a collection of articles in book form. The fact that only 2 society members have to date expressed interest in purchasing copies of Journal articles is irrelevant, as (presumably) all society members are already aware that some back numbers of the Journal exist and are available for purchase.
The comment that copies of the Journal are available in several public libraries is naive. Of course the Journal is available to those who know that it exists, and are prepared to take the trouble to consult it. I believe, however, that most of those who have written G&S books have been unaware of its existence, or have not been prepared to take the trouble. What is certain is that none of them have consulted it. You may be unaware that the British Library copy is not indexed under either "Gilbert" or "Sullivan", nor even under "Periodic Publications" which is the other obvious place to look for it. It is listed under "Societies: London". Anyone searching for Gilbert and Sullivan references would be unlikely to discover it. It took me several years of searching in the BL catalogue (the complexity of which is not easily appreciated by those who have not used it!) before I finally located it. I cannot of course speak for the other libraries you mention, as I have not searched for the Journal in any of them.
However, it is quite obvious that the Committee has no intention of pursuing the matter, and that it would be a waste of my time to press it any further. It is also clear that the Committee has no interest in actively supporting serious research, and that the objections it has put to the proposal (while no doubt genuine) are at the same time attempts to justify this position. I should point out that it was precisely this attitude which was responsible for the setting up of the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society and the W.S. Gilbert Society. I am often asked "What is the need for these societies? Should their functions not be covered by the Gilbert and Sullivan Society?" My answer is always "Yes they should be, but they are not".
30 May 1991
I am sorry to annoy you by bringing up yet again the matter of copyright of articles in the Gilbert and Sullivan Journal. However, I recently acquired a virtually complete run of the journal, very kindly presented to me by Peggy, Hugh Tierney's widow. In perusing these, I have realised that there are a considerable number of papers in the very early issues, the authors of which have been dead for over 50 years. Since the G&S Society has officially renounced any ownership of copyright in these, it is presumably safe to assume that copyright can be considered to have expired on these articles, and that they may be reproduced freely by anyone, provided that the author and source are acknowledged?
There is one other point. A number of articles in the Journal were written under what were obviously pseudonyms. What is the legal position regarding authorship of these? Should they be regarded as having been written by the current editor of the journal? The same would presumably apply to articles for whom no author is given?
[I received no answer to the points raised in this letter.]
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