The founding members were:[citation needed] They were soon joined by Charles Boosey, Edwin Ashdown and George Patey.
Over the years the offices have been situated in several London locations, most recently moving to British Music House in December 2005.
By 1905 the MPA had grown to 19 members and would continue to expand its membership to the present total of over 270 publishers handling over three thousand subsidiary companies, dealing in most musical genres.
[1] In October 2015 Jane Dyball was named CEO of MPA Group of Companies bringing together the MPA, Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS), Independent Music Publishers e-Licensing (IMPEL) and Printed Music Licensing Limited (PMLL) under one umbrella.
Paul Clements (formally Executive Director of Membership, International & Licensing at PRS for Music) succeeded Jane Dyball as CEO on 1 February 2019.
In August 2016 the MPA joined the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit's Operation Creative initiative in the fight against online music piracy.
The Tony Pool Award was created to recognise and applaud all those individuals that work in the "back office" areas of royalties, copyright, business affairs, finance, HR and IT for music publishers.
He was a firm advocate of copyright reform and made a significant contribution to political discussions in the UK and in Europe.