‘Britain’s brass bands older than thought and invented Napoleonic War soldiers’

‘Britain’s brass bands older than thought and invented Napoleonic War soldiers’ (Danny Lawson/PA) - (PA Archive)

Britain’s brass bands are older than previously thought and were invented by soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars, a new study has found.

The findings challenge the widely held belief that brass bands originated with coal miners and other industrial communities in northern England and Wales between the 1830s and the 1850s.