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Scan 361
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1918
137 lines. Read by computer on 9 September 2026. Printed page 307. See the scan on archive.org.
1instruments available for use and more sought for than new ones, ruined the English violin manufacture. During the 19th century, Italian violins poured into England from all parts of Europe. Paris, to say nothing of Mirecourt and Markneukirchen, afforded an ample supply of new violins of every quality, at rates which drove from the field English labour, whether more or less skilled. A few makers only weathered the storm. Gilkes' son William Gilkes, and his pupil John Hart, of Princes (now Wardour) Street, as well as Simon Forster, made instruments up to the time of their deaths; and there lived until recent years two representatives of the old English school in the persons of William Ebsworth Hill, then of Wardour Street, best known as a dealer in Italian instruments, but in fact a violin-maker of no ordinary merit, and John Furber of Grafton Street, to whom reference has already been made. To the house of W. E. Hill & Sons reference is made elsewhere in this article. It may be said without fear of contradiction from rivals, native or continental, that this firm worthily carries on the best traditions of the Golden Age of Violin-making. The family is as interesting as any whose records are to be found in the Guild-registers of Markneukirchen (vide supra), being represented to-day by Alfred and Arthur Hill, who are the sons of William Ebsworth Hill, who was the son of Lockey Hill, junior, who was the son of Lockey Hill senior, who was the son of Joseph Hill. It is as experts in violins, and as indefatigable historiographers of the great makers (as their list of publications shows) that they have pre-eminence to-day, the practical artist of the family being Alfred Ebsworth Hill, who received his training at Mirecourt, and under his father, and directs the workshops of the firm at Hanwell. George Hart, of Princes Street, son of John Hart, and author of two most useful works, The Violin, its Famous Makers and their Imitators (1875), The Violin and its Music (1881) was chiefly known as a dealer.
3The value of instruments of the English violin-makers is to some extent, of course, a museum value, by reason of the fact that the vast majority of artists prefer an Italian instrument, even of the second grade, to an English one, even of the first. The list below gives the values of instruments made by the makers whom we have already considered.
5The Viola by Barak Norman which was always used by Henry Hill the viola-player, changed hands a few years ago at £100, but this was to some extent a sentimental figure, though the instrument was an exceptionally fine one.
7This list does not profess to exhaust the London makers of stringed instruments. But it includes the most famous and prolific among them; and it may be safely added that, taken in the mass, the instruments which have been produced in London are equal in general quality to those of any city north of the Alps. Until the time of Lupot, the English makers were unquestionably equal as a school to the French, though they were rivalled by the Dutch; and Lupot himself might have shrunk from a comparison with the best works of Fendt and Panormo. Whether the art of violin-making in England will ever recover the blow which it has received from Free Trade, remains to be seen. E. H-A.; with use of matter by E. J. P. in the old edition of the Dictionary.
9<table>
10 <tr>
11 <th></th>
12 <th colspan="2">Violins and Tenors.</th>
13 <th colspan="2">Violoncellos.</th>
14 </tr>
15 <tr>
16 <th></th>
17 <th>Average.</th>
18 <th>Fine.</th>
19 <th>Average.</th>
20 <th>Fine.</th>
21 </tr>
22 <tr>
23 <td>Rayman</td>
24 <td>20</td>
25 <td>50</td>
26 <td>..</td>
27 <td>..</td>
28 </tr>
29 <tr>
30 <td>Urquhart</td>
31 <td>20</td>
32 <td>50</td>
33 <td>..</td>
34 <td>..</td>
35 </tr>
36 <tr>
37 <td>Pamphilon</td>
38 <td>20</td>
39 <td>40</td>
40 <td>..</td>
41 <td>..</td>
42 </tr>
43 <tr>
44 <td>Norman</td>
45 <td>15</td>
46 <td>40</td>
47 <td>15</td>
48 <td>50</td>
49 </tr>
50 <tr>
51 <td>Wamsley</td>
52 <td>20</td>
53 <td>40</td>
54 <td>20</td>
55 <td>60</td>
56 </tr>
57 <tr>
58 <td>Betts</td>
59 <td>15</td>
60 <td>30</td>
61 <td>15</td>
62 <td>45</td>
63 </tr>
64 <tr>
65 <td>Duke</td>
66 <td>12</td>
67 <td>40</td>
68 <td>..</td>
69 <td>..</td>
70 </tr>
71 <tr>
72 <td>Fendt</td>
73 <td>20</td>
74 <td>70</td>
75 <td>25</td>
76 <td>70</td>
77 </tr>
78 <tr>
79 <td>Tobin</td>
80 <td>20</td>
81 <td>50</td>
82 <td>..</td>
83 <td>..</td>
84 </tr>
85 <tr>
86 <td>Kennedy</td>
87 <td>15</td>
88 <td>30</td>
89 <td>15</td>
90 <td>30</td>
91 </tr>
92 <tr>
93 <td>Forster, W. S.A.</td>
94 <td>20</td>
95 <td>25</td>
96 <td>30</td>
97 <td>100</td>
98 </tr>
99 <tr>
100 <td>Lott, J. F.</td>
101 <td>..</td>
102 <td>100</td>
103 <td>..</td>
104 <td>..</td>
105 </tr>
106 <tr>
107 <td>Dodd</td>
108 <td>20</td>
109 <td>60</td>
110 <td>30</td>
111 <td>80</td>
112 </tr>
113 <tr>
114 <td>Hill (Joseph)</td>
115 <td>15</td>
116 <td>40</td>
117 <td>..</td>
118 <td>..</td>
119 </tr>
120 <tr>
121 <td>" (Lockey 1)</td>
122 <td>15</td>
123 <td>40</td>
124 <td>..</td>
125 <td>..</td>
126 </tr>
127 <tr>
128 <td>" (Lockey 2)</td>
129 <td>15</td>
130 <td>50</td>
131 <td>15</td>
132 <td>50</td>
133 </tr>
134</table>
136The trade of making viols and violins was engrafted on the profession of the lute-maker, and to this day the Italian and French languages express 'violin-maker' by Luthier and Liutaro, though lute-making has long been obsolete. In Cremona and some other Italian towns, principally Venice and Milan, the demand for the violin produced workmen who devoted themselves primarily to making bowed instruments, and to whom the lute tribe formed a secondary employment; but the earlier violins of Germany, France, and England were produced by men whose primary employment was lute-making. Hence, the uncertainty and inferiority of their models, though their workmanship is often praiseworthy and always interesting. But as the Cremona violin spread all over Europe, the lute-makers of other countries at first unconsciously, afterwards of set purpose, made it an object of imitation. The original violin models of England, Germany, and France if such, properly speaking, may be said ever to have existed, were thus gradually extinguished; and since about the middle of the 18th century scarcely any other models have been followed than those of the Cremona makers. It was about this time that a change, from an artistic point of view disastrous, swept over the art of violin-making. This change seems to have been the result of a demand for more and cheaper fiddles, and it originated in Italy itself. We
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