The clients of Ferdinand Weber, keyboard instrument maker in Dublin

2025-10-01 by Lance Whitehead
As well as analysing surviving instruments and researching maker’s biographies, understanding the market place in which a person operated, and identifying some of their clients, can be a fruitful means of exploring the context in which a stringed keyboard instrument builder operated. Two notable studies in this area are: Michael Latcham’s ‘Clients of Johann Andreas Stein recorded in the Notebook of Johann David Schiedmayer and Elsewhere’ (The Galpin Society Journal, Vol.66, 2013, pp.43–69); and Andrew Talle’s ‘The Mechanic and the Tax Collector’, chapter 2 of his book Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century (Urbana, Chicago and Springfield, University of Illinois Press, 2017, pp.32–42). Latcham shows that the clients of Stein included the Prince Bishop of Augsburg, two members of the Fugger family, and numerous high level merchant bankers and cotton manufacturers, in addition to a doctor, two artists, and a bed maker. Talle draws on Barthold Fritz’s own list of clients published in his Anweisung, wie man Claviere, Clavecins, und Orgeln, nach einer mechanischen Art, 2nd edition (Leipzig, 1757), to show that his patrons included various organists in Braunschweig and elsewhere, the composer Carl Heinrich Graun (1704–59), and an agent in Hamburg, to whom he sold a total of 18 clavichords between 1732 and 1756. One more notable client of Fritz was the Collegium Carolinum (now the Technical University of Braunschweig), to whom Fritz sold 11 clavichords during the period 1745–49, perhaps suggesting his instruments were used as pedagogical tools by some of the students.
Another maker for whom we know something of their clients is Ferdinand Weber (1715–84), who worked as organ builder and harpsichord maker initially in London (c1745–48) and subsequently in Dublin (c1749–84). Some of his accounts relating to Dublin, mainly covering the late 1770s, but spanning the years 1764 to 1783, were copied in the early twentieth century and these provide us with the names of 80 or so clients, details of the transaction or work undertaken and the amount charged. A full transcription of the document was made by Jenny Nex and me and published in the RMA Research Chronicle, no.33 (2000, pp.89–150), together with a commentary that focused mainly on the different instrument types and prices, income and apparent fluctuations in his client base. The online publication of many contemporary Royal Calendars, City Registers and Dublin Directories means that it is now possible to identify many more of his clients (the full list here and in the appendix).
Chief among Weber’s patrons were landed aristocrats, such as Sir Lucius O’Brien (1731–1795), Edmund Sexton Pery (1719–1806), Sir James Caldwell (c1720–84) William Crosbie, 1st Earl of Glandore (1716–1781), John Beresford (1735–1805), and John Hobart, 2nd Earl of Buckinghamshire, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Two of these, Crosbie and Beresford, were MPs in the Irish House of Commons.
Due to the patriarchal nature of society at this time, many of the women mentioned are referred to in terms of their husband or father, and those identified include Lady Bradstreet and Miss Bradstreet, probably the wife and daughter of Sir Samuel Bradstreet (1738–1791), politician and Recorder of Dublin. Importantly, the tuning and transport of Miss Bradstreet’s harpsichord refer to her instrument as being ‘at the Recorders’. Lady Betty Cobbe (1736–1806) owned as many as two harpsichords, a spinet and a piano, which she kept at Newbridge House and a property in Palace Row, and although we don’t know whether these were originally supplied by Weber, he regularly tuned and occasionally repaired them.
Five lawyers and three members of the clergy also feature in the accounts, in addition to two members of the Latouche family of bankers, and Patrick Lawless, partner in the bank Coates and Lawless. Perhaps more interesting, however, are the entries relating to Philip LeFanu (fl.1755–90), academic and author of History of the Council of Constance, John Chaigneau, listed in various Royal Kalendars and City Registers as Treasurer of the Ordnance, and Dominick French, identified as a grocer of Abbey Street, Dublin. It is possible, too, that one ‘Mrs Glinn’ refers to the wife of Joseph Glynn, a bricklayer of 10 North Cole’s Lane. In this case, identification seems to be confirmed by the fact that Weber attended ‘Coles Lane’ to tune his client’s spinet.
In addition to identifying the clients in Weber’s accounts, consideration has been given to the possibility of linking one or more of them with a surviving instrument. Unfortunately, only two or three of Weber’s instruments can be dated with any confidence – BMO-2029, 2025 and 2458 – and none of these correspond exactly with harpsichord purchases in the accounts. Nevertheless, there is a possible match between BMO-2025, the only extant upright harpsichord by Weber, and Mrs David Latouche. The instrument is apparently dated 1764 on the back of the soundboard, and we know that Weber repaired Mrs Latouche’s upright harpsichord in 1769 and added a buff stop, which the instrument has. More evidence is needed, however, before the link can be substantiated. The will of David Latouche (d.1817) survives in the National Library of Ireland, but it is not available to view online.