If you contact me at pianohistory.info, I live in Louth and have a litte information
On Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 4:28:56 PM UTC, Simon wrote:
Hi all,
Apologies if the cross-post seems strange, but I'm on the trail of a
150 year old blind piano tuner from Louth and the uk.louth.victorian.pianotuners.blind group (you remember the one)
seems to have passed Google's robotic spiders by.
My wife and I have recently come into the possession of an upright
piano bearing, on the underside of the keyboard lid, the legend "Jesse
Hall, Louth" and were initially curious as to his identity. Early
research has been restricted to on-line census archives and genealogy
forums but results have been good. We now know, for example, that Mr
Hall was born in Louth in 1851, was married to Martha, had a daughter
Elsie and worked as a pianoforte dealer, piano music seller,
shopkeeper (presumably of pianos and music) and piano tuner despite
being, according to the 1901 census, "blind from boyhood".
Our interest was fairly casual at the outset but the more information
we uncover, the more intriguing it is. Any help that you could
provide with the following would be very much appreciated.
o We have information about his immediate family, but where would we
need to look to find out a bit more about his piano dealership and
tuning business?
o What is the significance, if any, of the positioning of "Jesse Hall,
Louth" in bold, gold letters under the keyboard lid? It's more than a tuner's mark. Did dealers do this or did he make it himself?
o What is the likelihood of finding a grainy Victorian photograph of
the shop-front?
TIA,
Simon
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