Books › British violin-makers classical and modern; being a biographical and critical dictionary of British makers of the violin from the foundation of the classical school to the end of the nineteenth century, 1904 › scan 313
Scan 313
British violin-makers classical and modern; being a biographical and critical dictionary of British makers of the violin from the foundation of the classical school to the end of the nineteenth century, 1904
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1gum known by that name, for he did not use it, and this had no affinity to the methods of magic. Williams could write a beautiful hand, and no doubt his smattering of English and knowledge of about a dozen Latin words magnified him to Merlin-like proportions in the estimate of his fellows.
3Two local country-side fiddlers, Ianto'r Garth and Deio Llantrisant, played upon fiddles of his make. Another noted village-green fiddler, Levi Gibbon, of Fishguard, played upon a Williams fiddle, and people who remember this really fine player (albeit humble) said his instrument had a tone like that of a flute. It is said that Williams won his spouse by the cunning of his bow. Ann Davies was a young woman of beauty, and the daughter of a well-to-do local farmer. The fiddle-maker wooed her, and wooed not in vain, though the young woman's parents resented the match. The fiddler's playing appealed to the heart of Ann, and, helped by the dignified bearing of his princely figure, was completely successful in making captive the maiden's heart. He would play in the wood opposite her dwelling, and the pathetic pleading of the notes borne on the wings of the breeze reached the ears of Ann, and brought her out to the sylvan retreats. During one of these rambles the vow was made, when both swore eternal love to the music of the fiddle.
5WILLIAMS, O. R., Manchester, contemporary. I have not seen any of his instruments.
7WILSON, JAMES L., Greenock, contemporary. He was born in Galston, April 13, 1847, and he works at 20 Octavia Cottages, Greenock. He is not a professional maker, albeit his work has not a trace of the amateur about it. Nothing can be more true to the original than his copies of Gasparo da Saló, nor more beautifully finished than his last half-a-dozen instruments. He got a few lessons in violin-making from the late John A. Mann, and being of an artistic turn of mind, he soon made progress. He can paint very fairly in oil and water-colours, and he generally draws a bust of himself with indelible ink on the back of the violin under
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