Frederick Joseph Ricketts (21 February 1881 – 15 May 1945) was an English composer of marches for band. Under the pen name Kenneth J. Alford, he composed marches which are considered to be great examples of the art. He was a bandmaster in the British Army, and Royal Marines director of music. Conductor Vivian Dunn called him "The British March King". Alford's frequent use of the saxophone contributed to its permanent inclusion in military bands. His best known work is the "Colonel Bogey March".
Ricketts was born on 21 February 1881, the fourth child of Robert and Louisa (née Alford) Ricketts in the Thameside hamlet of Ratcliff, within the parish of Shadwell in London's East End. Born within the sound of Bow Bells (the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside), Ricketts had Cockney birthright. His London ancestry can be traced back to the early 18th century: his father was a coal merchant in Ratcliff on the north side of the Thames near Limehouse. On 9 December 1884, a fifth child, Randolph Robjent, was born to the Ricketts family, who, like his elder brother, was to become well known in military musical circles, under the pseudonym Leo Stanley. Ricketts's father died when he was seven and his mother when he was fourteen.
His early musical training had been on playing the piano and organ and working as a church chorister in the parish church of St. Paul's, which still stands today. As a boy living in London's East End he would often hear street musicians and bands, including German bands and early Salvation Army bands. Fascinated by the sound of instruments, the orphaned Ricketts determined that the best course for his future would be to join an army band.
Ricketts joined the Royal Irish Regiment in 1895. He was enlisted as a Band Boy. It is generally believed that he lied about his age in order to be accepted, giving 5 March 1880 as the date of his birth. In 1895, Ricketts' true age would have been 14, certainly from 21 February. After the 1876 investigation into the status of Boy Soldiers, the Army's regulations had become more clearly defined. Boys were enlisted from the age of fourteen as musicians, drummers, tailors, shoemakers, artificers, or clerks. It would hardly seem necessary for Ricketts to have added a year to his age but throughout his military service, the adopted date was listed as his birth date. Well-liked, ambitious, and a good student with natural ability, he was proficient enough on cornet within very few months and taken into the regimental band. The band went on postings with the regiment, first to Limerick in Ireland, then to India.
Ricketts used every spare moment to learn to play all the instruments in the band. He was very popular with the regular soldiers because of his piano-playing ability in the various messes, as he was promoted. His first composition at the age of 15 was "For Service Overseas", which has never been published. As he concluded seven years of man-service, in 1903, the Colonel Commanding the Royal Irish Regiment, and his bandmaster, Mr. J. Phillips, recommended Ricketts for entry into the Student Bandmaster Course at the Royal Military School of Music, (Kneller Hall) in Twickenham, Middlesex. As it was then unusual for a 23-year-old musician to be nominated for Kneller Hall, it is believed that this is proof of his skill.
Royal Military School of Music
Ricketts' two-year course at Kneller Hall began in the summer of 1904. Studies there were rigorous: the first year consisted of a firm grounding in harmony, counterpoint, instrumentation, aural training, composition and arranging, carried out by a graduated senior student. Along with these studies, Student Bandmasters were required to learn the basics and pass playing tests on the five woodwind and five brass instruments normally found in the military band. Moreover, there were various band practices, public summer concerts, plus strict military discipline. The teachers in year two were highly qualified professors in each field, often from the Royal College of Music, or working professionals. This year culminated by sitting competitions in arranging, composition (concert band and brass band), conducting, and church service (conducting and composing organ preludes and psalms). All graduate Student Bandmasters then waited for their "tips" –- their appointments as Warrant Officer Class 1 Bandmasters to one of the line bands. Normally, those who placed highest in the examinations were the first to be appointed, but if there was a top line band which would lose its present bandmaster in several months' time or even a year, then the Director of Music might hold back the graduate who he felt should have that band. Ricketts excelled at Kneller Hall, but did not win the March Competition. The student who did was W.V. Richards with a March titled Namur, the name of a battle honour of the Royal Irish Regiment (Richards was from the Royal Irish Regiment), published in 1908.
Graduating in 1906, so highly was he regarded that Ricketts stayed on at Kneller Hall as chapel organist and assistant to the Director of Music, Lieutenant (later Lieutenant Colonel) Arthur Stretton, for two years. Though the post of School Bandmaster was not initiated until 1949, Ricketts may well have acted in a similar capacity during those two years. In 1929, Kneller Hall introduced an advanced certificate for already qualified bandmasters (though they had to sit another stringent set of exams to obtain it), but it was retroactively awarded to those who were deemed to have previously demonstrated achievement of the higher standard, or had been commissioned prior to 1929. Ricketts was one of those to receive the award, allowing him to use the letters "psm" (pass, school of music) after his name as a military qualification. (It was widely felt among British Bandmasters that the psm exam was also a screen by which those who did not fit the mould for becoming commissioned Directors of Music could be discretely failed on a subject, making them ineligible.)
Ricketts' younger brother, Randolph, attended the one-year pupil's course at Kneller Hall, for advanced training on his instrument, and entered the Student Bandmaster course in 1900. He graduated in 1913 and became bandmaster of the 2nd Battalion, Essex Regiment, where he served until 1925. In 1926, he moved to the Band of the Royal Corps of Signals, remaining with this group until his retirement in 1938. He composed marches and other band music under the pen name Leo R. Stanley.
In 1908, Ricketts was finally given his own band. He was posted as bandmaster to the Band of the 2nd Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, joining them in the Orange River Colony (formerly the Orange Free State) in what is now the Republic of South Africa. The colonel asked him to write a new regimental march for the Argylls, and he responded with "The Thin Red Line", based on two bars of the regiment's bugle call. The title and term originated in a journalist's description (a "thin red streak tipped with a line of steel") of the appearance of the red-coated Argylls (under their alternate name of the 93rd Highland Regiment) as they stood before – and repelled – a vastly superior force of Russian cavalry at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. This march was not published for general use until 1925.
Ricketts had a desire to compose music. The problem was that it was frowned upon for commissioned officers and warrant officers class 1 to be engaged in commercial activities in the civilian world. The answer for Ricketts was to compose and publish under a pen name. The pseudonym Kenneth J. Alford was constructed from his eldest son's name (Kenneth), his own middle name (Joseph) and his mother's maiden name (Alford). The first march written under the new pen name was "Holyrood". In July 1911, the 2nd Battalion and Band of the Argylls were in Edinburgh, performing guard duties at the Palace of Holyroodhouse (the Edinburgh residence of the Monarch) during the coronation-year visit to the Scottish capital of King George V and Queen Mary. Moved to commemorate the occasion, Ricketts sketched the march on the back of an envelope during one of the interminable waits these duties entail. It was published in 1912 by Hawkes and Son of London, the first to bear the Alford sobriquet.