This piece of sheet music marks the visit of Her Majesty’s 77th Regiment to Sydney in 1857. The regiment had previously been engaged in the Crimean war, in which Britain and other allies had supported the Ottoman Empire in a dispute with Russia.
The arrival of the soldiers in Sydney was celebrated by thousands of onlookers who enjoyed military displays and performances by the regimental band. This piece for piano comes from a bound collection of sheet music located at Rouse Hill House & Farm and was no doubt performed on the new piano purchased by the family in 1855. The Rouse family owned hundreds of different pieces of music for both voice and piano and, like ‘the 77th Galop’, these surviving publications offer us an opportunity to share in the home-made entertainment of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. - MS and CF
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