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MAKER'S  FILE  

LONGMAN & BRODERIP 

with information regarding Longman & Lukey, Muzio Clementi & Co., and Collard & Collard

When James Longman set up as a music seller in 1767 the pianoforte was just coming into fashion. Although he did not necessarily intend it initially, piano manufacture was to be the thing for which his company became internationally famous.

The shop was located by the sign of the Harp & Crown, at No. 26 Cheapside (near the church of St Mary le Bow), then the most prestigious shopping street in London, though since eclipsed by Oxford Street and Bond Street. (It was not until 1782 that a second address was acquired, at 13 Haymarket, near the opera house.) At the outset James Longman's business partner was Charles Lukey, A square piano bearing the inscription Longman, Lukey & Co, Musical instrument makers, 26 Cheapside, London (dated 1770) is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. In appearance and specification it is indistinguishable from the work of Zumpe & Buntebart, who were then the most important makers of square pianos. Unfortunately this piano has been severely compromised by an ill-advised restoration, carried out before the museum acquired it, leaving little to confirm whether this was in fact supplied to Longman from Zumpe & Buntebart, or was merely a very careful copy.

In 1773 the business gained a new name when Francis Broderip joined them. Their instruments and other wares were then marked as being from Longman, Lukey, and Broderip, but this lasted for only three years because Lukey died in 1776. Thereafter the business traded for twenty years under the title most frequently encountered: Longman & Broderip. Square pianos remained a very important part of their sales throughout the 1770s, and the variety that survive seems to show that they were commissioned from several sources. Nevertheless, these pianos are all of standard English design with the so-called 'single action' of Zumpe. One of their suppliers has been confirmed by the researches of Jenny Nex as being Christopher Ganer, whose workshop was in Broad Street. He received payments for various sums during the late 1770s and early 80s.

A quantum leap occurred in the mid 1780s when organ builder John Geib, living in Southampton Row (near Bedford Square) but originally from the Rhineland Palatinate, secured patent rights for an improved type of square piano with an escapement action. Subtlety of touch gained much from this innovation, making possible the more refined expressivity that advanced players could obtain on contemporary grand pianos. James Longman and his partner were very impressed and signed an exclusive contract with Geib. Typical specimens dating from the mid 1780s have an escapement lever closely resembling one of the three designs shown in Geib's patent drawing.  [Click to see this early action]  Shown below is piano No. 1025, believed to date from 1786.

This shows the extraordinary high quality of the cabinet work on some of these first 'patent' squares. The principal timber is dense, high grade Cuban or San Domingo mahogany (from Haiti), bordered with Central American satinwood. The name-board is inlaid with exquisitely executed arabesques inspired by Robert Adam's book of classical designs. Inside there is a green silk-covered 'dustboard', concealing most of the working parts, and four hand-operated stops. Three at the left work the divided dampers and a harp or 'buff' stop. The fourth, at the right, raises small pads of buff leather to touch one of each pair of unisons. This appears to have been intended solely as an aid to tuning, making it possible to go through one set of strings and afterwards tune the unisons, as players would be accustomed to do on their harpsichords. As an una corda stop it is not as satisfactory as the true una corda found on early English grands in which the keyboard shift  provides that only one string is touched by the hammer while the unisons are free to add sympathetic vibration.

Most square pianos sold by Longman & Broderip are not so elaborate, and some did not have escapement ― these were presumably sold at a lower price. Both kinds were manufactured in a dedicated workshop established in Tottenham Court Road where Thomas Culliford and his team of craftsmen produced hundreds of instruments annually, and developed many further improvements for these instruments. The escapement mechanism went through several stages of  refinement leading, around 1788, to a design which became so successful that it was universally known, to nineteenth century piano-makers, as 'English action' for square pianos ― copied not only in London (after the patent had expired) but also in America and Germany, and adapted for upright pianos too. An early form of this is shown in the accompanying drawing.

With these refined square pianos Longman & Broderip were for some years the premier manufacturers in Europe, and their shops in Cheapside and Haymarket became an essential call for all musical visitors to London. Most of the pianos, though plainer than the one above, are given at least a little decorative inlay on the nameboard (see below), and generally have the usual three hand stops, though some have only two. Some have a pedal to raise and lower the lid flap. A new fashion becomes apparent around 1790 when many of the pianos have hand-painted decoration on the nameboard, featuring either laurel wreaths or floral garlands featuring peonies, sweet peas and eglantine.

                             The most common form of nameboard embellishment, c.1788-93 ― inlaid floral swags, and enamel plaque.

No. 1081, with swell pedal and hand painted embellishments.

Never willing to be outdone when further inventions came to light, James Longman bought the rights to another important patent in 1794. This was from William Southwell, originally from Dublin, whose patent included the first adjustable, wire-operated dampers (sometimes called 'dolly dampers'). These were a huge improvement on the old lever over dampers, being virtually silent in operation. These 'dolly dampers' led directly to those used in modern grand pianos. But Southwells' best remembered innovation was a novel way of making a keyboard extension upwards to 5½ octaves by passing eight 'additional' notes (f to c) under the soundboard, from where the hammers appeared through a slot at the back. These pianos (using the old single action without escapement) were apparently numbered in a new series starting perhaps from 200, though one lower number has been reported. Concurrently those made to Geib's patent design (with five octaves only) were each stamped with a serial number at the left, near the hand stops, having four digit numbers.

However, in the mid 1790s things were starting to go wrong, not with the pianos but with the company finances. War with republican France disrupted trade with Europe, creating many economic difficulties. Longman had borrowed heavily in earlier years to finance his expansion, and now his creditors wanted to call in their loans. Eventually, in 1795 both partners were declared bankrupt and — rather than fleeing to France in time-honoured fashion — they went into the debtors' prison. There are in existence square pianos with enamel plaques showing Longman & Broderip, with the date 1796, but clearly these plaques must have been commissioned before their fall from grace, and they were used anyway. Their business empire was so vast, and its prospects so good, that a consortium led by Muzio Clementi bought out the interest and presumably paid off some of the debts. From 1797 square pianos appeared bearing the new  company name Longman, Clementi & Company. These were significantly better still, combining a five-and-a-half octave keyboard with the escapement action, and a pedal to obtain the sustaining tone. For many of these design improvements they were indebted to William Southwell. His later improvements included a larger soundboard and a lighter, more flexible bridge. The tone of these early Clementi pianos was better than anything heard before, and in well-restored specimens remains as delightful as ever.

Clementi & Co. c.1804

After just over a year in prison James Longman was released to rejoin his former associates at Cheapside, while Francis Broderip formed a new company with George Wilkinson, trading from 13 Haymarket. Pianos sold by these two companies are very similar. Broderip & Wilkinson square pianos have exactly the same technical specification as Longman, Clementi & Co, and are similar externally, but usually they are plainer above the keyboard and the ivory key plates are compromised for quality. John Geib meantime emigrated to America, where he set up a new business in lower Manhattan, which prospered in the new century as John Geib & Sons of New York.

Back in London, James Longman was pursued by more creditors and was again in the Fleet prison in 1803 where he died in November that year. His former business empire now traded under the name Muzio Clementi & Co. The Longman name lived on for some years as John Longman, believed to be James' son, started another company trading from 121 Cheapside from 1803 until about 1816, and after that under the name Longman & Heron. Francis Broderip died in 1807, but the piano-making business was continued by Wilkinson, with various associates including Robert Wornum. Meanwhile the business founded by James Longman went forward on a far more secure financial basis under the careful fiscal control of Clementi. When he died in 1832, the business was continued by his foreman Frederick Collard. The firm of Collard & Collard (the brothers Frederick and William) continued manufacturing pianos until about 1870, but as the piano industry contracted in the late nineteenth century the business was sold, and the name disappeared as it was amalgamated with other firms producing standard trade  instruments.

For more information on the subjects mentioned on this web page see The Pianoforte in the Classical Era by Michael Cole, published by Oxford University Press, 1998.