Broadwood

[Clark]

Kristinn asks:

> How many models are there?

We answers: how many keys and pedals would you like?


> The Square Pianoforte
>
> The earliest recorded Broadwood sqaure was sent out of the workshop 
> to 'Miss Pelham at Brighthelmstone' on 9 August 1770. This was the 
> simple Zumpe pattern with the English single action and the 
> 'over-damper', of five octaves FF to f^3. The case was veneered in 
> Mahogany with fruitwood stringing, and measured 5 ft 2½ ins by 1 ft 
> 9¼ ins.
>
> In 1783 John Broadwood took out an English patent (No. 1379) for 
> eight developments in pianoforte manufacture. These concerned the 
> action, the dampers, the arrangement of hammers, two or more 
> soundboards, the soundboard with soundpost, the arrangement of wrest
> pins, the forte pedal and the sordino pedal. The last controlled a 
> piece of wood hinged to the case, lying along the soundboard bridge.
>
> The first recorded sale of a piano with the brass under-damper is on 
> 29 September 1783, when Miss Gibbs of Cork bought one for £21.
>
> The first mention of a pedal is in relation to a square which Mr 
> Robert Buckley of Manchester ordered on 24 March 1786 for Mr Keynes 
> of Deans Gate: 'It is to have a pedal the wire of which is to come 
> through the cheek and not to have leather.' For the wire 'to come 
> through the cheek' implies that the device was to be worked by a 
> stop-knob beside the keyboard rather than a foot-pedal.
>
> Other customers demanded other old-fashioned controls. Thus as late 
> as 26 May 1796 a Mr. Bartolozzi ordered 'a pianoforte ornd. without 
> addl. keys with 2 pedals to act by the knee, one of them to raise the 
> lid, the other the dampers.' Apedal 'to lift the lid' was similarly 
> ordered by Lord Despencer in 1797.
>
> In 1784 John Broadwood introduced other patented innovations, for in 
> that year he made No. 200 (now in the possession of C.F. Colt) with a 
> double soundboard and soundpost in the style of a violin. Not many of 
> these seem to have been made, and few survive. It is particularly 
> interesting, therefore, that in the patent specification, this 
> innovation is described as 'the most essential part of the said 
> improvements on the said instrument'. The expansion of production is 
> demonstrated by the fact that although pianos of this period were not 
> numbered on the nameboard *consecutive numbering for squares, as for 
> grands, was introduced in 1796), the Notebook on dating gives No. 409 
> as having been made in 1785; this implies that in one year, the 
> factory made as many square pianos as had been made in the previous 
> fourteen years.
>
> The other datings given in the notebook are:
>
> 488	591	901	1266	2000
> 1785	1786	1788	1790	1793

> The English double action was introduced into squares in the 1780s 
> and offered as an optional alternative until the early years of the 
> nineteenth century, when it superseded the single action.
>
> Broadwoods were offering 'additional keys' on the square from late 
> in 1793, bringing the keyboard up to 5½ octaves (up to c^4 or 'CC in 
> alt'). John Broadwood wrote to a correspondent in Charlestown on 13 
> November 1793: 'We have just begun to make some of the small 
> Pianofortes up to that compass.' (Harding credits this development to 
> William Southwell of Dublin in 1794, but Cg8Kdwoods began earlier.)
>
> Cases were becoming more decorative from 1794; thus in October of that 
> year Pascal Taskin bought four squares, 'one plain and three inlaid'.
> By 1790 Broadwood was supplying actions to be fitted into cases by 
> furniture manufacturers: thus on 2 March 'Mr Chippendale for a P.F. 
> to be put in a sideboard, £18 18s.'
>
> By 1814 most square pianos were 5½ octaves and the case had become 
> more substantial (and larger: 5 ft 6 ins by 2 ft 1½ ins). The 
> instrument had six legs, was sometimes decorated with brass mouldings 
> and borders, had built-in drawers for music, and a forte pedal 
> suspended from the case.
>
> The first metal hitch-pin plate was applied to a square piano by 
> Samuel Hervé while working for Broadwoods in 1821, and this became 
> general practice the following year. From the mid 1820s most squares 
> were six octaves (FF to f^4) and measured 5 ft 7½ ins by 2 ft 2 ins.
>
> Production of the square ceased in 1866 at No. 64161.

	- Wainwright, David. "Broadwood by Appointment". London,
	  Quiller Press. 1982. p.326-7