Edwin Ashdown Ltd.

Edwin Ashdown Ltd.

Edwin Ashdown Ltd. London music-publishing firm established in 1825 by C.R. Wessel as Wessel and Stodart, and known 1860-84 as Ashdown & Parry before taking its current name. Its catalogue has emphasized piano and vocal music. Ashdown had a Canadian retail store for a short time (ca 1878) in Toronto. A later Ashdown's Music Store, which sold music of many publishers, was managed (ca 1888-ca 1920) by Edwin's son Sydney. By 1890 the son also managed the Anglo-Canadian Music Publishers' Association in Toronto, and the two firms operated jointly. In its first four years Ashdown's Canadian branch issued some 60 'Canadian Copyright Editions of Standard Music Compositions' but later did very little music publishing. Prominent among the composers published were Stephen Heller, Gustav Lange, and Sydney Smith and the Canadians A.E. Fisher, W.H. Hewlett, and Clarence Lucas.