Howard's 2-4 Swan Street Manchester

[nkgibbs]

I wonder whether other C.netters have come across this dealer (round badge on a 20b Lachenal Anglo) in Manchester?

 

Neil

 

Edited November 26, 2015 by nkgibbs

[Myrtle's cook]

This is a bit of an aside, but I am doing some work in Manchester at the moment and have walked past this address several times this week. It is now occupied by what looks like a 1930s building/facaded building, home to the Big Issue in the North (a paper sold by homeless people - for those outside the UK). Peering through the shop front I can't see any signs of the original layout etc.).

 

The little badge is certainly in a higher league than the usual paper dealer's labels that appear on Lachenals. If time permits I'll have a look in the library to see if they have any old street directories that might shed light on this operation. Is there a number on the concertina that might help with dating?

[Stephen Chambers]

Yes, I've come across concertinas with that celluloid badge inset into them before, and other similar ones from other dealers. I'm sure I've seen similar ones on old phonographs and the like too.

[Anglogeezer]

A quick look at SLATER'S DIRECTORY 1911 shows :-

 

Howard's Ltd. Musical Instrument Makers

143 Oldham Street. Manchester.

 

Jake

[Stephen Chambers]

A quick look at SLATER'S DIRECTORY 1911 shows :-

 

Howard's Ltd. Musical Instrument Makers

143 Oldham Street. Manchester.

 

And I understand they were still in Oldham Street until the 1950s but, of course, it's a later address.

 

However, I've found evidence that Samuel Howard was at 2 & 4, Swan Street through the 1890's and into the early 1900s.

 

He's still there in my 1903 copy of the Musical Opinion & Music Trade Review Directory, in which he described himself as a "Piano, organ, and harmonium dealer."

Edited November 27, 2015 by Stephen Chambers

[Stephen Chambers]

He described himself in that as a "Piano, organ, and harmonium dealer."

 

Which has led me find that Samuel Howard was "A talented inventor of improvements to the American organ who was described (Musical Opinion 1898) as a prominent music dealer and professor." (Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume Harmonium, the History of the Reed Organ and its Makers.)