Articles

A Family Affair:  Jean Baptiste Colin and Charles Jean-Baptiste Collin-Mézin Heading from JB: Dr John Basford records the genealogy of the Collin-Mezin and Colin families revealing a common ancestor. The article also shows the many leading Mirecourt figures who were in their circle of friends. The real Jean Baptiste Colin (hereafter JBC) has somehow escaped … Read more

His Life James Tubbs has had a bad press. Violin literature has characterised him as a drunk, from a family of drunks who lived dissolute lives. The facts indicate something quite different. His working life extended to over 70 years, due to his enforced return to work following the death of his son Alfred in … Read more

Many woods were used for bow making in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including Brazilwood/ pernambuco, snakewood/amourette, spindlewood, tung wood, coral wood, ironwood, plum wood, beech wood, ebony, bois d’abeille (also known as bulletwood or massaranduba, though recent usage sometimes translates , bois d’abeille as Brazilwood which would more usually be bois de Brésil) and … Read more

It is perhaps significant that, until very recently, the word, ‘worker’, had masculine and feminine forms in French (ouvrier and ouvrière), but the word for, ‘violin maker’ (luthier) did not. Such was the case until 1 March 2019, when the Académie française ruled that the word luthière could now be used for the feminine form. … Read more

The information given below is sourced predominantly from birth, baptism, marriage, death and criminal records, censuses, and trade/residential directories, including those of Pigot, Kelly, the Post Office, Trow, and Robson. We have only included information which we believe ha a high degree of reliability. There are many more members of the Tubbs family than are … Read more

Violin image © Tim Toft Violins. Text © John Basford, 2024. Most in the violin world are familiar with the company, W.E. Hill & Sons, but perhaps not everyone is quite so familiar with the family members who were its predecessors, so I will begin by presenting biographical summaries of those in a direct line … Read more