The early twenties were productive years, with work proceeding apace on the issue of the Carnegie collection, the Polychordia string series, and the Fellowes’ editions of early music. In 1924, however, there was a significant setback when Ralph Vaughan Williams felt that Stainer & Bell’s staff was too small to handle his recently written Hugh the Drover. This prompted the Board to increase the size of the staff, but the action was taken too late to keep Vaughan Williams as one of the house composers. Meanwhile in 1923, the first action had been taken to contest a breach of Fellowes’ copyright in rival publications of madrigals and Curwen were successfully persuaded to withdraw their edition, destroy stock and apologise in the press.

Stainer & Bell (along with Novello and Oxford University Press) refused to join the Performing Right Society and insisted on the BBC paying fees direct for each item broadcast — a position that was to continue until the middle of the next decade. In March 1929, the Board declined a request from the tax authorities to supply details of composers’ royalties!

In mid-1931, George Maxwell left Ricordi to set up his own Galaxy Music Corporation in New York, and the company agreed to the new firm being its United States agents. A few days later, Maxwell died in Paris, but nevertheless the Board chose to stay with Galaxy — a decision which was to play a significant part in the future Stainer & Bell story.

By 1933, when the Board appointed Ellis Howard as Managing Director, the firm was again in serious financial straits and there was a barren period in terms of significant new publishing. In 1934 however, it was agreed that a new monthly journal for children, The Young Musician, would be launched. It would be funded initially by a syndicate of William Macmillan, Hilary Chadwyck-Healey and Ellis Howard. It was hoped the magazine would help the firm compete more effectively with its competitors who could promote works through their own magazine outlets. Debts overhung the under-funded company for a very uncomfortable three years, and it was only the forbearance of its printers Lowe & Brydone Ltd in not pressing for payment that liquidation was avoided. That firm was, however, having its own share of troubles involving a reconstruction of its financial base, and it was wondered whether that forbearance would continue.