Entertainment and Social Events

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Halifax's reputation as a community which encourages and loves band music dates from the eighteenth century, when the British forces posted to the Garrison City brought their regimental bands and provided stirring music for both troops and civilians. Lieutenant William Dyott, 4^th Regiment of Foot, arrived in Halifax in 1787 and noted in his diary, "There is a square in town called the Grand Parade, where the troops in garrison parade every evening during the summer; and where all the belles and beaux of the place promenade, and the bands remain to play as long as they walk."

Singing, dancing and music were taught and enjoyed in Halifax from the beginning of the community. Henry Meriton offered dancing lessons to both men and women in 1752, and nine years later, Jacob Althaus advertised that he would teach gentlemen to play sundry musical instruments. The Nova-Scotia Gazette, 22 February 1785, carried the first newspaper reference to a concert — an event held in the Golden Ball, a local coffee house. Concerts and operas were subsequently performed in the British Tavern, Noonan's Tavern, Mrs. Sutherland's Coffee House, the British Coffee House, the Golden Ball, the Grand Theatre and the Theatre Royal.

Mrs. Anna Kearney, describing the evening of 10 August 1795, when she attended the comedy Ways and Means and the burletta [a comic opera or musical farce] Midas, confided to her diary that "Sir John [Wentworth, the Lieutenant Governor] sent his carriage to conduct me to the Theatre — The Coachman much in liquor & drove so extremely fast that I was near fainting with fear when we got to the Door & trembled from Head to Foot [.] Mrs. George sat also in Sir Johns Box — The Play (which was Ways & means) went off tolerably well with the Scenery pretty & some of the male Voices in Midas extremely fine". Mrs. Kearney's ride home was uneventful, the coachman apparently by then being sober!

Late nineteenth-century activities, actively captured by the invention of the camera, reflected typical pursuits and interests of the time: balls and dances, art exhibitions, concerts, plays and lectures, boating and other water-related activities, and family, Sunday School and group picnics to popular local destinations such as the North West Arm, Bedford Basin, McNabs Island, Cow Bay and the Rocking Stone in Spryfield. Another local novelty was the skating rink at the Exhibition Building on Tower Road, officially opened in 1880. Ice carnivals were held there regularly, attracting upwards of 3000 spectators to watch hundreds of costumed skaters.

Some things never change. Halifax celebrated its bicentenary in 1949, and The Standard (Montreal) of 16 July commented that "Like a tired but happy old lady playing hostess at the biggest party of her life, Halifax laid out the welcome mat June 21 for a summer-long whirl of parades, fun-making and pageantry to mark the city's 200^th birthday".