Before joining their father at York Street, James worked at Hawkes & Sons as an instrument repairer and Thomas worked as a saxophone assembler at Emmanuel Lewin where saxophones were manufactured from imported French parts. He had two sons, James and Thomas who on leaving school both went into the family trade. He lived above the shop where he worked and gradually earned a good reputation as a woodwind technician and repairer. and began his own business, known as George Howarth, based in York Street in the West End of London. were later to amalgamate with Hawkes & Sons in 1930, to become Boosey & Hawkes. Unfortunately the business was sold before George completed his training. Born in 1860, he was the son of a pastry cook, but he did not follow in the family trade and once he moved to London he became an apprentice at the flute makers Liddle. The Howarth family began their involvement with instrument making when George Howarth, Thomas Howarth’s father, moved down to London from Rochdale. At Besson he specialised in making clarinets and during his time there, in 1934, Boosey & Hawkes acquired an interest in the company. Fred learnt his trade from a number of instrument repairers and assemblers operating between the wars including a period at the Premier Drum Company and at the band instrument maker Besson. Fred’s father Thomas and his grandfather Frederick had both worked for the military musical instrument makers, Distin, and the indenture reproduced on the inside front cover details Thomas Mooney’s apprenticeship to the company in 1859. In this large family the boys were encouraged to follow their father and grandfather into the musical instrument making trade, while the girls successfully followed the female line into dressmaking for the aristocracy. were Thomas Howarth, George Ingram and Frederick Mooney.įrederick Mooney was born in 1903, the youngest of eight children, six boys and two girls. The three families were the Mooneys, the Ingrams and the Howarths, each of which had been involved in woodwind instrument manufacture and repair for many years prior to 1948. first came into existence in 1948 when members of three families united to form the company.

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