1787

Bury, Samuel & Co. were listed at 113 Bishop's Gate within London. There are no further records for them after 1794.

1787

Pascal Taskin developed a form of return string. Taskin used a screwed wrest pin in the form of a metal loop, through which the strings were passed. One end of the loop passed through a block of wood in such a way that it could be moved backwards or forwards by means of a nut. This method was expensive to produce and was not widely used, unlike the system James Stewart invented in 1827, which is still used today by all the piano makers.

1790

James Ball set up making pianos in Duke street, London, and was active until 1817.

1790

Ludwig Lenkfeld set up in Tottenham Court Road and was there until 1796. He was in partnership with Geib for a short time.

1793

John Adlam was established around this time and his premises were at 40 King's Street, London.

1793

Broadwood's made their last harpsichord.

1793

Monro & May, 60 Skinner Street, Snow Hill, London. The company was in business from 1793 to 1827. Monro worked for Longmann & Broderip until 1788 and may have worked on his own after this time until 1793.

1793

Johann Adolph Ibach sets up shop in Barmen, Germany. The oldest surviving family-owned piano manufacturers in the world, Ibach still makes fine instruments at their factory in Germany.

1793

John Broadwood gave his son James Shudi Broadwood fifty percent of the shares of the company and renamed the company John Broadwood & Sons. James had by this time worked in all parts of the company and was well-versed in piano making.

1798

Broderip & Longman, the music publishing and instrument retailing company, went bankrupt. Their addresses were 26 Cheapside and 195 Tottenham Court Road, London. This was a turning point in Clementi's life, as Clementi had a long association with this company. He decided to form a partnership with four gentlemen to set up a new piano company from the old one. One of these gentlemen was Frederick Collard, who came from Somerset.

Collard was a carpenter by trade, and was soon in demand as a "belly maker" (soundboard maker). He was put in charge of production, while Clementi did most of the selling. Clementi eventually became one of Broadwood's main competitors. Clementi himself was a talented businessman, as much as he was a talented composer and musician. Unfortunately, Clementi was reluctant to change with the times. He was reluctant to introduce over-damping, over-stringing, and some of the more modern factory production methods emerging from America. The firm eventually became Collard and Collard. Collard's also made pianos for John Squire, 22 & 23 Sutterton Street, Caledonian Road, London. Clementi died at Evesham England in 1832. In 1960 Chappell's took over Collard's, then sadly in 1963 a fire destroyed all the Collard records, which included those of Clementi.

1800

1800

The first true upright, by John Isaac Hawkins, an Englishman living in Philadelphia. In this piano, strings ran below the keyboard with hitch pins at the bottom (unlike the pyramid piano where the strings ran up from the keyboard to the top). The compass was five octaves with an octave span of 158 mm., which is narrow. Hawkins was born on the 14th of March, 1772. He attended medical college but left, and began a career in piano making. It is said he made a piano for Thomas Jefferson, but that Jefferson was unhappy with his piano and returned it to Hawkins. Not long after this Hawkins left the US and returned to England to sell coffee. Later, around 1819, he ran a mechanical museum.

1800

The Jacquard weaving loom was manufactured in Lyons, designed to weave cloth under the control of punched cards. Later developments of the idea were applied to musical instruments, leading to the invention of the player piano and the Pianola.

1801

Erard made a grand for Napoleon, which had a Viennese action and five pedals.

1801

Edward Riley obtained a patent for a transposing piano, in which the keyboard moved laterally, allowing keys to work different notes. The same year Jacob Ball made a transposing piano, which is said still to exist.