Harp Making in
Late-Georgian London
At the end of the eighteenth century, after the French Revolution, the centre of pedal-harp making moved from Paris to London. There, building on the work of its Bavarian originators and Parisian developers, mainly immigrant makers elevated the instrument to new musical, technical, and decorative heights, and placed it in the hands and salons of the British upper classes and aristocracy. Until recently, the story of harp making in England has been dominated by the Erard family who built about 7,000 of an estimated 15,000 harps made in London during the nineteenth century; some 20 other makers have been all but forgotten.
This book, the story of harp making in late-Georgian England, assesses the role and consumption of the harp in society whilst describing its decorative and technical development. Forgotten makers and their innovations are identified. Through the lens of newly discovered documents and the reinterpretation of others, Jacob Erat's manufactories are reconstructed. His working methods, illustrative of those used in the wider industry, are rediscovered, and employees and suppliers are revealed anew.
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ISBN: 9781527265110
428 pages
Price: £60
Harp Making in
Late-Georgian London
At the end of the eighteenth century, after the French Revolution, the centre of pedal-harp making moved from Paris to London. There, building on the work of its Bavarian originators and Parisian developers, mainly immigrant makers elevated the instrument to new musical, technical, and decorative heights, and placed it in the hands and salons of the British upper classes and aristocracy. Until recently, the story of harp making in England has been dominated by the Erard family who built about 7,000 of an estimated 15,000 harps made in London during the nineteenth century; some 20 other makers have been all but forgotten.
This book, the story of harp making in late-Georgian England, assesses the role and consumption of the harp in society whilst describing its decorative and technical development. Forgotten makers and their innovations are identified. Through the lens of newly discovered documents and the reinterpretation of others, Jacob Erat's manufactories are reconstructed. His working methods, illustrative of those used in the wider industry, are rediscovered, and employees and suppliers are revealed anew.
​
ISBN: 9781527265110
428 pages
Price: £60
Earl v Dodd
Morning Advertiser, Thursday 11 June 1829
This was an action in trover brought to recover possession of a harp detained from the plaintiff by the defendant.
Mr Brougham and Mr Thessinger appeared for the defendant. The plaitiff is a respectable chemist and druggist, at Winchester, and now Mayor of that town. In January, last year, he employed a friend to purchase a harp for him, for which he gave 40 guineas to a broker in Whitechapel, at whose shop it was openly exposed for sale. The instrument, however, wanted some repairs, and Mr Dodd’s name, as the maker, being on it, it was sent to him to be put in order. As soon as Mr Dodd saw it, he recognised it as one that he had lent, in 1824, to a lady now in Newgate, under sentence of transportation for swindling, but then living in Hampstead, and going by the name of Sanders (alias Sutton Cook). Mr Dodd related how he had been defrauded out of it, but said that he had escaped the expense of a prosecution, by being out of the way when he was called on. He sent notice around several pawn-brokers at the time, and among others to Mr Chaffers, in Greek-street, who has also a shop in Watling-street, at which latter the harp was pawned, and through which it passed into the hands of the broker.
Mr Justice Littledale being of the opinion that the right of property was not changed by the fraudulent obtainment by Mrs Sanders, Mr Brougham consented to be nonsuite.