The Townsville Railway Band competed in the Rockhampton Band Contest at the Rockhampton showgrounds in Jan 1919 with 27 regular players (dark blue uniform with red and dark facings) and three emergency players under the conductorship of Mr. F. Teague. The band came 3rd in the A and B Grade championships. This was the first band contest held in Rockhampton in just over 12 years. Contest selection "Verdi's Works" (arr. Rimmer) was played at Lissner Park in the lead up to a large audience. Townsville scored 180 points for B-Grade Test Piece "Satanella" (Greenwood), 3 points from first place, which netted Townsville a prize of 10 pounds. A brave performance was also given for A-Grade Test Piece "Tachaikowsky" (W Rimmer) where 110 points were earned.
Townsville came fourth in the A-grade own-choice street march "Twentieth Century", scoring 79 points - only 4 points behind winning band Maryborough Naval band."The Band opened well. The cornets and sopranos were not always in perfect agreement later: but the trombones were fairly effective. ... The trio was much better. The band was tuneful and the soprano did very well," noted adjudicator Mr. Albert Wade (Ipswich City Vice-Regal Band bandmaster, and former New Zealand bandmaster winning several international competitions).
Townsville also performed the same song for the Evolution march where points are awarded for music, marching and appearance. LTCOL D. D. Dawson accompanied by CAPT Simcocks judged the march and appearance. Townsville Railway Band came third, with the adjudicator commenting it made a fair start and that the trio went well until "one cornet did not repeat and kicked things up for a few bars".
Townsville Railway Soloists also led from the front. Our cornet player A. Farren, a 14 year old lad at the time placed first in the novice cornet solo "Non E Ver" with 82 points, 2 points ahead of his nearest rival, receiving a gold medal and congratulations from the adjudicator. Young Farren was then carried shoulder high amongst much cheering from the audience. Fellow cornet player H. Shepherd took out the B Grade cornet solo scoring 88 points with "O Lovely Morn", 4 points higher than Townsville Railway colleague W. Holmes who came second. Bandmates O. Forbes also took out the BBb solo with "Te Anau" on 70 points, and J. Hooper took out the Baritone solo playing "Wiederkehr". P. Hooper tied second on 94 points with "Cavalliera", just two points behind first place. Similarly our soprano A.F. Neilson also tied second in the soprano cornet solo competition with "O Lovely Night", just one point behind first place.
The competition was not without controversy with several protests lodged, mostly regarding the right of the Rockhampton City Concert Band to compete. One example was the band had one band member registered in two bands (Rockhampton and NSW) at the same time - which is not permitted in competition. The Queensland Band Association ultimately decided to allow the band to continue competing. This was met with great uproar and delayed day 2's B-Grade street march program where several bands went on strike and refused to continue unless the Rockhampton band was prohibited from competing. Several southern bands (Childers, Bundaberg and Maryborough) stated they would be catching the mail train home! Much persuasion from the Queensland Band Association, Rockhampton Municipal Band and Contest Committee was required to encourage the objectors to back down and resume competing, on the proviso that the matter would be referred to the QBA Executive (which consisted of representatives of 34 Queensland bands). However, it was alleged that most of these band representatives were from the Brisbane region and therefore any decision on regional/central Queensland bands should be treated with suspicion. A subsequent suggestion was raised for central and Northern Queensland bands to create their own Executive, with the headquarters to be based in Rockhampton or Maryborough.
A special mention was made to the Charter Towers Band, with conductor Mr. J. M. Clarke in attendance. The Charters Towers Band had won the Queensland Championship for 3 consecutive years prior to WWI. Thirty-three band members enlisted when the war broke out. Four members, including the principal cornet player made the ultimate sacrifice, and another seven who returned will never play again. It was noted that no other known band in the world has such a history.
Source: Daily Record (Rockhampton, Qld. : 1897 - 1922), sourced via TROVE