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British Violin Makers: A Biographical Dictionary of British Makers of Stringed Instruments and Bows and a Critical Description of Their Work, 1920
8 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 179. See the scan on archive.org.
1VIOLIN AND BOW MAKERS
3HILL, WILLIAM, London: 1740-80. Son of the above Joseph Hill. His work is said to be very good, but I have not seen any instruments which could with certainty be ascribed to him, and cannot therefore say what they are like.
5HILL, W. E., & SONS, London: contemporary. The period of Willim Ebsworth Hill is 1817-95; the present members of the firm are: William Henry, born June 3, 1857; Arthur Frederick, born January 25, 1860; Alfred Ebsworth, born February, 1862; and Walter Edgar, born November 4, 1871. The name of William Ebsworth Hill is almost as well known in the violin world as that of the great Stradivari himself. There is nothing extraordinary about this, for next in importance to the greatest maker is the greatest restorer, and it will be readily admitted, I think, that William Ebsworth was the greatest restorer this country has ever produced, and one of the greatest in all Europe. He was a pupil of his elder brother, Joseph, and he worked for a time with Charles Harris, at Oxford, whom he left in 1838, returning in that year to London and settling down, first in Southwark, then in Wardour Street, and finally in New Bond Street. I cannot discover that he made very many new instruments, but such work as he did make was of a high order of merit. Miss Stainer in her Dictionary of Violin Makers says that "he exhibited some very beautiful violins of carefully finished work and an excellent viola of large pattern, with full round tone, in London, in 1862, obtaining special commendation and a prize medal." But if he was not a prolific maker, he was the most indefatigably industrious restorer of old instruments that has ever been known, and his skill, patience, and trustworthiness in this branch of the art deserve to be, and will be, ever held in the greatest esteem by all lovers of the "King of instruments." Violin repairing in his hands became violin restoration, and he raised what had hitherto been regarded in this country as a humble craft to the dignity of fine art.
7I have already said something of violin restoration in the
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