A History of the Hill Family in 44 Lots

His other sons William and Benjamin became musicians, indicating the strength of the family’s commitment to the music as well as the craft of the violin. The youngest son John Hill was regarded as a talented maker, but not much is actually known of him, and he left little, if anything of his own work. Which makes one of the items in this collection particularly intriguing; a very ornate business card of his, which suggests some achievement on his own terms- there is evidence that he worked with pianos in his career which lasted until 1810. This small card is a valuable contribution to what is known about him. Labels and other printed material about the next few generations of Hill violin makers  family are significantly lacking, for a variety of reasons.

Lockey Hill arrived in London from Alvechurch some time later, but before 1772. Despite the fact that both Joseph and Lockey left a rich legacy of instruments behind them, for Lockey existence seems to have been hard. He worked for much of his life for the firm of Longmans, typical of the entrepreneurial businesses then establishing themselves in London as general music dealers. He lived in the less salubrious areas of Cheapside and Shoreditch, and resorted to crime. In 1796 he was convicted of horse stealing at the Old Bailey and suffered the death penalty. His son, also Lockey, but known to us as Henry Lockey, was equally rowdy as a youth, and in 1800 was also convicted of horse stealing. Being still only 16, he escaped capital punishment, and subsequently came to work for John Betts, as the younger Joseph had done a few years before.

Despite his difficult early life, he developed there into the most refined maker of the family by some degree, coming under the influence of Bernard Simon Fendt and pioneering the Stradivari model for both violins and cellos. His own son William Ebsworth was born in 1817, and although perhaps the most significant bearer of the family name, W.E. Hill himself left few instruments of his own.

W.E. Hill eventually built a successful business on Wardour Street, not quite the prestigious address of Haymarket, but rapidly becoming the heart of violin making in London, home to Joseph Panormo, John Lott, and Georges Chanot among others. An enterprising and, we would imagine, innovative restorer and dealer, his success meant he was able to give his sons a good education and a stable family background. His eldest, William Henry, in fact became a professional violist, and played for some years in Queen Victoria’s Royal band. His younger sons were Arthur Frederick and Alfred Ebsworth, and all collaborated on the book ‘Antonio Stradivari, his Life & Work’, a work of great scholarship published in 1902, which remains a fundamental text in Stradivari studies. Alfred and Arthur’s later work on the Guarneri family, published in 1931, is of similar importance.

Aside from authorship and expertise, Alfred, and another brother Walter Edgar, who died young in 1905, trained as violin makers in Mirecourt, a remarkable and ambitious step for English craftsmen, and required of them at the very least a working knowledge of French. This brought contact with Mirecourt and Paris craftsmen who later became the backbone of the firm of W.E. Hill & Sons, which was established in 1890 in New Bond Street, a building with a fine, even extravagant façade, which certainly represented a bold statement of their ambition. The accumulated knowledge of William Ebsworth, and the assiduous research of Alfred and Arthur made the company the most respected and authoritative in the world. William Ebsworth was much loved by his sons, and this collection includes a selection of ornate hand-carved bridges made by him apparently when in his seventies, which is a testimonial to a man clearly still devoted to his life-long work.

William Ebsworth died in 1895, Arthur in 1939, and Alfred followed in 1940. At that point came a sideways step in the family line when Albert Edgar Phillips, Arthur’s brother-in-law, took over the firm, having adopted the Hill name to establish continuity. He too trained at Mirecourt and worked briefly in Munich with Giuseppe Fiorini. His name is branded on a finely carved unvarnished violin neck and scroll.  Amongst other pieces in this collection are intricately carved viol heads, a double bass head and a reproduction head inscribed ‘Henry Jay’ dated 1920, clearly intended to replace a missing original. Interestingly there are also cello necks ‘in the white’, although very few cellos were ever attributed to the W.E. Hill & Sons business in a workshop largely devoted to violin and bow making, alongside their celebrated restoration and repairs.

Likewise, a bundle of rosettes, some of brass, presumably from eighteenth century English guitars, but also a beautiful and delicate pearwood piece of indeterminate origin. Medals presented to the company by Ysaye and Queen Victoria, Royal Warrants from Queen Elizabeth of Belgium and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, and letters from Sir Henry Wood and Edward Elgar testify to the reverence held for the firm by both officialdom and musical society. Arthur was active in the Worshipful Company of Musicians and seems to have had a remarkable judgement and a profound appreciation of music, and the great sweep of late nineteenth and early twentieth century virtuosi with whom he kept company.

Particularly intriguing as a piece of personal history is Alfred Edward’s membership card for the Violin Makers and Dealers Association of Great Britain and Ireland, dated 5^th July 1907 and countersigned by George Chanot, with whom the Hills were not on particularly friendly terms. Alfred himself was the president of the association, and is listed with George Hart, John Beare and both F.W. and G.A. Chanot on the committee.