1837 Born in Neilston, near Glasgow, to Daniel Chisholm and Marjory Chisholm (nee McLintock)
Self taught pianist
1851 worked in a cotton factory, lived with parents on Grace Street, Glasgow
teacher of music, lived on Buchanan Street, Glasgow
1858 marries Jessie Thomson Wallace in Glasgow
1859 starts performing as a pianist
1859 daughter Annie Laird born
1860 daughter Lucy Caldwell born
1861 December daughter Jessie Violet born
1861 composes The Battle of Stirling
1862 April departs for Melbourne, Australia from Liverpool with Miss Edith Aitken, a tragedienne, also from Glasgow.
1862 June – performing in Australia, on the harmonium, “eminent pianist” with Miss Amelia Bailey, Miss Edith Aitken. Smythe is agent.
1862 October – December – elocutionary and musical entertainment given by Miss Aitken and Mr Marquis Chisholm
1863 May – Chisholm leaves Melbourne for Sydney and then onto Shanghai
Bailey, Washington Simmons, Smythe travel to Shanghai
1863 June or July? – Chisholm and Mons. Boulanger, fellow pianist, contract cholera. Boulanger dies.
1863 August – Chisholm arrives in Nagasaki, Japan. Gives two concerts with Signor Robio there. “From the theatre we went to the magic shop, where, by the purchase of a few spinning-tops and the expenditure of a few tempos, we got a company of strollers set to work, and some of their tricks were really of the most astonishing character. One man placed some twenty needles on one thread with his teeth; but what struck me as a more remarkable feat was the performance of a boy, who raised himself to a height of about six feet in the following manner ; He first balanced himself upon his hands as our own town Arabs are sometimes seen doing, and then a small wooden block was thrown him, which he caught and placed upright, while he steadied himself with the other hand. A second piece of wood was given him, which he placed on the top of the other and so on, raising himself upon successive blocks, until he finally stood in an inverted position on a six feet pyramid…the top spinning feats were best of all. There were large tops and small tops, singing tops and humming tops – tops that spun along a strong and tops that spun up a string from the flor to the ceiling, where they entered a small box, which, like the swift changes of the harlequinade, became instantly transformed into a miniature cottage, with flags flaunting from the windows thereof, and a large umbrella shooting out of the roof.” Greenock Advertiser 7 July 1868 p 1
1863 September – Chisholm spends a month in Yokohama – Plays with Amelia Bailey in Yokohama and then returns to Nagasaki.
1863 October – returns to Shanghai
1863 November – accompanies Risley and Bailey in concerts in Shanghai
1864 Concert in Shanghai attended by the Japanese Ambassadors en route for Europe, whose interpreter was Mr Blakeman
1864 April – concerts in Hong Kong
1864 July – left Shanghai for Japan with John Reddie Black and William Hobson
1864 July – spent a few days in Nagasaki
1864 July – September – giving concerts in Yokohama
“A Mr Marquis Chisholm has won the hearts of the Japanese by playing a fantasia on their own melodies as a pianoforte solo. A native artist has portrayed the performer enthusiastically playing to excited Japanese audiences, whilst a few drowsy foreigners are depicted as falling asleep. The inscriptions on each division of the picture declare the air played to be some favourite of their own, and it would seem to be the Japanese method of expressing their idea that the Europeans do not appreciate their minstrelsy.
The following is a free translation of the writing on the margin of the picture:-
We Japanese are very fond of Sing-song; we like it more than we can express; we cannot have enough of it; all the year round daughters play and sing. All the people in the world we are told are fond of it, and speak largely of its charms; how then can we speak too much? The piano is an instrument most wonderful: all our good people in this part talk of it, yet their talk is too small. The best ladies in our land go to see it, and to hear this Marquis Chisholm play upon it. He plays our own music. His fingers are like as many butterflies, fluttering from flower to flower, the flowers our own native melodies, he is indeed very great, and we are very small. I had heard much talk of this great man before I went to see him : the talk I did not understand, until I head him play. His playing is as the singing of many birds. All men must like him; he is from the Western country – English.”[1]
[1] London and China Telegraphy, 28th November 1864 p 3
1864 October – meets Chang Woo Gow, “Chang the Chinese Giant” in Shanghai
1865 March – returns to Japan from Shanghai to say goodbye and travel on to Britain via San Francisco and New York.
1865 April – final concerts in Japan
1865 April – Chang and his wife, and party depart for Britain.
1865 August – performs at Egyptian Hall, London, with Chang the Chinese giant, 7 feet 9 inches tall (or over 8 feet by some accounts). Lecture by Mr Siddons on Chinese costume and manner. Chisholm plays “some really charming fantasias from Chinese airs” which he has composed.
1865 September – Marquis Chisholm introduces Chang Woo Gow, his wife and suite to the Prince and Princess of Wales.
1865 December – performs a concert in Glasgow City Hall and also lectures on his travels.
1865 published “The Adventures of a Travelling Musician”
1866 March – shows Chang in Glasgow at Merchant’s Hall, Hutcheson St.
1866 May – initiated into Freemasonry. Chang goes on a tour worldwide, marries in Australia, has 2 children, eventually settles in Bournemouth where he dies in 1893.
1866 July daughter Alexandra Wales born in Glasgow
1866 December – exhibited a number of Japanese curiosities and read an amusing paper entitled “The English from a Japanese Point of View”, introducing selections of Oriental music at the Glasgow Athenaeum, second annual conversazione.
1867 March – purchased a music seller business with capital accumulated while in Japan and China.
1867 – performed at the Paris Exposition and buys pianos for his business.
1868 May – birth of son James in Greenock
1870 birth of son Alexander in Greenock
1870 April – Tannaker’s Japanese troupe visit Greenock “in a measure under the agency of Marquis Chisholm” – 8 male and female
1870 June – November – largely absent from the business due to ill health
1871 census “music and pianoforte seller” living in Greenock with Jessie, Annie, Jessie, Alexandra, James, Alexander and a servant
1872 declared bankrupt
1874 – sells his collection of Chinese artefacts. Moved to Canada with his family.
1877 died in Toronto, Canada, at the age of 40, “after a painful illness”. “Habits of intemperance hastened his sad end” Greenock Advertiser, 21 December 1877 p 3 “He was rather of a roving disposition and could ill bear the restraints that plodding men of business and even bright-minded professionals submit to, and this may have to a large extent helped to render his desultory efforts abortive. As a consequence he was for the most part in difficulties, and we are sorry to observe that his amiable widow and family are left distressfully circumstanced in a strange land.” “He stated before he died that he was a Freemason, and the Hospital authorities have applied to the Order here to see whether they will bury the remains.” Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette 18 December 1877 p 3