Metadata
WORK ID: YFA 1462 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| WADDINGTON'S PIANO WORKS, SCARBOROUGH | 1928 | 1928-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent Duration: 36 mins Credits: Cyril Joseph Wilson filmmaker Subject: Working Life Industry |
| Summary This is a film of the Waddington’s Piano Factory in Scarborough. The original film which was deposited at the Archive consisted of multiple pieces of prints making up this film and running about 36 minutes. The film catalogued is an edited version which does not consist of any duplicate scenes. Additionally, due to the nature of the original mat ... |
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Description
This is a film of the Waddington’s Piano Factory in Scarborough. The original film which was deposited at the Archive consisted of multiple pieces of prints making up this film and running about 36 minutes. The film catalogued is an edited version which does not consist of any duplicate scenes. Additionally, due to the nature of the original material, the production process may not have occurred in this order; however, the film does document various aspects of the piano production process...
This is a film of the Waddington’s Piano Factory in Scarborough. The original film which was deposited at the Archive consisted of multiple pieces of prints making up this film and running about 36 minutes. The film catalogued is an edited version which does not consist of any duplicate scenes. Additionally, due to the nature of the original material, the production process may not have occurred in this order; however, the film does document various aspects of the piano production process from beginning to end.
The film opens with a machine sawing wood.
Title – Dimensioning the piano back by parallel saws known as ‘A double cross cut saw.’
There are men using the saws with a close up of the blade cutting.
Title – Thickness – A planing machine for reducing the wood to the required thickness.
A man using that machine, and wood chips splinter out of the top as the machine cuts the appropriate thickness. The worker shows the piece of wood to the camera when complete.
Title – Edge planing.
Bits of wood go into the machine, and again wood chips can be seen coming out.
Title – Shaping the fall by a spindle machine.
Another man uses that machine.
Title – A band saw – (for sawing curves).
A man uses the band saw cutting curves into a small piece of wood.
Title – Sand papering Curves
A small machine is used to sand smooth the newly cut curves.
Title – The assembly of the back.
More workers are seen in the factory.
Title – Arranging belly bars.
A man places the bars on the back of the piano.
Title – Gluing and fixing belly bars.
Two men use long, narrow pieces of wood to fix the belly bars while the glue sets.
Title – And the bars are chamfered –
A man used a chisel to file down the edges of the bars.
Title – Fixing bridges to the back.
A similar process is followed to that of fixing the belly bars.
Title – We now come to the operation of marking off.
Title – Marking scale on bridges.
A man marks small holes along a bar for the piano scale. The then drills holes in the areas marked.
Title – Boring the bridge for the pins.
Title – The pinning of the bridge. The average number of pins used is 426.
After drilling, the man hammers in all the pins. The scale is then fit onto the frame.
Title – Boring back of piano before stringing.
A young boy uses a drill to bore the holes.
Title – Fitting strings. The number of strings used being 213.
A man stretches the stings to opposing pins along the back.
Title – This young man is “chipping-up.” This being a term used to describe the operation of first raising all the strings to their correct pitch. All tuners receive their first ear-training in this department.
The boy plucks the strings and uses a small tool to tighten them to the appropriate pitch.
Title – An extraordinary machine known as a joining press.
Two men use this large, windmill-looking machine.
Title – Scrapping fall before sand-papering.
A man used a small, flat tool along the fall.
Title – Scrapping case parts before sand-papering.
There is a close-up of one worker performing this task.
Title – Sand-papering case parts by machinery.
Large machines are used for this process. The operating belts on these machines are exposed. A young boy sands the edges of small pieces of wood, and another worker uses a large bit of the machine to sand the bigger pieces of the casing.
Title – CASE FITTING.
Title – Fitting ends or sides.
One worker brushes glue along the edge and fits a side piece to it. The edge is then clamped until the glue dries.
Title – Fitting key bottom.
A man fits in the key bottom and piano bottom using a hand-cranked drill to screw in the pieces.
Title – Fitting fall.
Title – Screwing lids.
A man uses a mall screwdriver for this process.
Title – Fitting lid.
The lid is fitted onto the top of the piano case.
Title – BY A TRICK OF THE CAMERA WE WILL NOW SHOW YOU HOW THESE PARTS ARE ASSEMBLED.
Trick photography is used to show all the parts going into the case making up the finished product.
Title – Action fitting.
Lots of workers are visible taking part in this process.
Title – Boring, Balancing, and Loading of keys.
Younger boys are in charge of this process. They make individual keys and assemble the keyboard using a drill and hammer to put the key parts together.
Title – Putting washers on Key Frame.
A young man puts small washers on the frame.
Title – Fitting action standards.
These are fit using measurement tools.
Title – Preparing hammers.
Title – Gluing hammers.
A young man does these tasks – hammers being connected to the keys to strike the strings. There is a close-up of the hammers.
Title – General action. Fitting and regulating piano action.
A man loads this piece onto the piano case. The keys are then fitted in.
Title – Final fine regulating.
The keys are loaded and adjusted.
Title – Tuning and trying over.
A man plays the piano keys and tunes the strings accordingly. He plays scales.
Title – Cleaning out by compressed air. Under a pressure of 90 lbs. to the square inch.
A gun blowing compressed air is used to clean the strings and hammers.
Title – Filling the Grain.
Parts of the case are painted with stain.
Title – A filled-in case ready for polishing.
Title – An up-to-date method of spraying on the polish.
A spray gun is used to administer polish to the large sides of the case. The case is placed on a turntable for easy access.
Title – Final polishing done by hand.
A row of workers all polish finished piano cases by hand.
Title – EVERY PIANO BEFORE LEAVING THE FACTORY IS TESTED BY AN EXPERT.
A man, dressed in a suit, plays scales on the piano testing the instrument.
Title – Every not is tested for touch, repetition, and responsiveness.
More scales.
Title – Testing ton for sustaining power.
The man pulls out a pocket watch to test the time for which a note can be held.
Title – The Waddington Piano is finally passed out in the most perfect condition possible to achieve.
There is a close up of the testers hands playing the piano, and the film closes with a shot of the front of the factory building.
Context
This film was found by a member of Scarborough Video Club, David Simpson, in the chicken shed of his father-in-law Cyril Joseph Wilson, who was a local Scarborough filmmaker. Included in Wilson’s Collection are films of games on Scarborough beach, a motorbike rally (at the Mount?), swimming and diving in the North Bay pool (including in winter), skipping on Shrove Tuesday, fishing boats arriving at Scarborough, the South Bay cliff railway and Home Week in 1930. It isn’t known whether Cyril...
This film was found by a member of Scarborough Video Club, David Simpson, in the chicken shed of his father-in-law Cyril Joseph Wilson, who was a local Scarborough filmmaker. Included in Wilson’s Collection are films of games on Scarborough beach, a motorbike rally (at the Mount?), swimming and diving in the North Bay pool (including in winter), skipping on Shrove Tuesday, fishing boats arriving at Scarborough, the South Bay cliff railway and Home Week in 1930. It isn’t known whether Cyril was involved in the making of this film, but in all probability the film would have been made by Waddington’s as a promotional film for their pianos. Waddington’s were not a big player among piano makers, probably relying upon a local market, having several Yorkshire outlets. The factory where the film is set is today a B&Q store, whilst their social club, opposite, became the Mere Social Club in the 1930s, before closing in 2008.
Around the turn of the century there were some 360 English piano makers – Dolge lists 136 of them – with London very much the centre. It is no surprise therefore that Waddington’s doesn’t tend to get much mention (Dolge doesn’t, and Wainwright only mentions them in passing). They were established in 1838 by William Alfred Waddington in York, one of the first British piano makers outside of London. During the nineteenth century they issued at least two patents for improvements to the piano. Kelly's Directory of the Cabinet & Furnishing Trades for 1894 lists them as having warehouses in Leeds, Wakefield, York, Spennymoor, Middlesbrough, Scarborough and Durham. They remained in Scarborough until at least 1936, moving out before 1938. They retained a place Middlesbrough (at 108, Linthorpe Road), dealing in gramophones and radios as well as pianos; and also in Newcastle (at Metrovick House, Northumberland Road), as piano makers and dealers. They managed to survive the war, but closed some time in the 1950s or 1960s. The piano has often been described as the most universal of instruments because of its musical range and its ability to evoke complex emotions. It is this ability that gave it the advantage in the early seventeenth century against the harpsichord and the clavichord: the former lacking tone, the latter lacking power. The piano grew in popularity also with the change in musical fashion, moving out of the drawing room and into public arenas. It was a time when pietism, a product of the Reformation, encouraged an inwardness that would eventually find expression in romanticism. The piano became the ideal instrument for giving musical form to the full range of human emotion that this unleashed throughout the arts, finding perhaps its first full development in Schubert. Germany, or the collection of states and principalities that made up the German empire at that time, was at the centre of this shift in sensibility, and so it is no surprise that this was the home of the piano. Although in essentials invented by an Italian, Cristofore, at the beginning of the 1700s, it was the German organ-builder Gottfried Silbermann who built the first pianos – or pianoforte, to give it its full name (piano e forte: soft and loud). He was not alone, there were others experimenting around the same time, not least Jean Marius in France. With the onset of the Seven Years War in 1756, piano makers emigrated, some to London, in particular Johann Zumpe, leading to the piano being manufactured here for the first time. Methods of striking the strings and of dampening, speeding up and controlling the action, gradually evolved, although somewhat differently in England, France and German speaking states. However, the modern piano emerged in the US with Henry Steinway in New York in 1855. Following on from pioneers Sebastian Erard (French) and Henri Pape (German émigré to France), Steinway combined a cast iron frame with layering the strings, ‘overstringing’, and started to mass produce the first modern upright pianos in the 1870s. The mass production that US industry was able to bring to building pianos led to their expansion not only into new middle class homes, but also in its use in many different contexts, such as bars and brothels, and different styles of music, such as ragtime and jazz. Already in London John Broadwood was exploiting the fashion for pianos from the late eighteenth century. By the second half of the nineteenth century the piano had became a necessary part of any respectable home: in Britain the numbers being manufactured grew from 25,000 in 1850 to 75,000 in 1910. This was accompanied by an industry of popular music making, of which little has survived critical acclaim. There was huge competition in piano making: in Germany in 1884 there were 400 piano making factories. The London based British piano industry tended to be aimed at the lower end of the market, with a cheap piano going for around £20 at the turn of the century (about £1,600 at today’s prices). This was a lot of money, but from the 1850s credit was becoming widespread, so this could be paid for over a 3 year period (see Erlhich, References). However, with many customers having little musical training, the pianos were often so poorly made that they had lost their value before being fully paid for – although quality improved with time. By the 1930s the industry was in retreat due to the rise of the gramophone and wireless, the loss of value of the piano as a status symbol and the Depression. In Germany the number of piano manufacturers fell from 127 in 1827 to just 37 by 1933. Erlhich reports that a journalist estimated that a population of 40 million should be purchasing 120,000 pianos a year; yet in 1932 the London piano maker Strohmenger, President of the Pianoforte Manufacturers’ Association, estimated it as being at just 25,000 – and these simply the ‘professional tools’ for musicians, schools, teachers, hotels and steamships (not forgetting pubs). Erlhich also provides figures that show that between 1924 and 1935 radio and gramophone sales went from £7m to £27m, whilst expenditure on musical instruments fell from £9m to £5m. To combat this downward spiral piano companies would offer free car rides and free piano lessons. This fierce competition led to the launch of the Brasted minipiano in 1934, selling 7,000 in its first year at 28 to 38 guineas each; and other manufacturers were quick to follow this example. In 1931 the most renown English makers of pianos, John Broadwood and Sons, were in serious financial troubles (see Wainwright). By the 1970s Yamaha had come to dominate the piano market, especially with electric pianos – although this wasn’t an entirely new phenomena, they were winning awards as far back as 1904. The process of making pianos became ever more automated, with the skills seen in the film lost possibly forever. Moreover, the parts are now usually brought together from many different companies, rather then produced in one place. However, there remain some manufacturers of ‘hand made’, or traditional, pianos, mostly in Germany. One aspect of the process that remains in human hands is the fine tuning, which requires each piano to be tuned according to its individuality. With 5,000 moving parts and the sound affected numerous factors, including the type and grain of the wood and humidity, tuning requires great expertise. There are also many different ways to tune the piano depending upon the music being played. The highly regarded classical pianist Krystian Zimerman always takes his own piano with him and prepares it himself. On 7th April 2003 the British Piano Manufacturing Company went into liquidation, closing its factory at Woodchester in Gloucestershire, leading to production ceasing of Welmar, Knight, Bentley, Woodchester and Broadwood – the world’s oldest piano maker founded in 1728. More recently, in October 2009, the last remaining British piano makers, Kemble and Co, owned by Yamaha, closed their factory in Milton Keynes transferring production to Asia. (With special thanks to the Piano History Centre) References Derek Adlam, ‘Anatomy of a Piano’, in Dominic Gill (ed.), The Book of the Piano, Phaidon, Oxford, 1981. Andrew Clements, ‘The Piano Makers’, in Dominic Gill (ed.), The Book of the Piano, Phaidon, Oxford, 1981 Cyril Ehrlich, The Piano: a history, J M Dent & Sons, London, 1990. Alfred Dolge, Pianos and their Makers: A Comprehensive History Of The Development Of The Piano, Dover, New York, 1972. Dominic Gill (ed.), The Book of the Piano, Phaidon, Oxford, 1981 Wilfred Mellors, ‘The Popular Piano’, in Dominic Gill (ed.), The Book of the Piano, Phaidon, Oxford, 1981. David Wainwright, The Piano Makers, Hutchison & Co., London, 1975. Piano History Centre the Association of Blind Piano Tuners (ABPT) Further Information Martha Novak Clinkscale, Makers of the Piano, Vols. 1 & 2, Oxford University Press, 1993. Harold Rose, The Piano Makers, Pianoforte Publicity Association, London (publication date unknown) |
