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Stolen Concertinas!


wes williams

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You may be interested to read the 50+ cases of stolen concertinas by searching for Concertina at The Old Bailey. The first is 1850, so no help about when the name came into use!

Interesting site, Wes...many thanks for the link. Indeed, they mostly seem to be about burglaries. The one in 1850 may have been an EC, as it was valued, along with a coat, at 8 pounds (depends on the value of the coat, which we will never know). Those in 1853 and 1854 seem to have been German concertinas, valued at only a few shillings.

 

The divorces must have been at another, civil court; there don't seem to be any at Old Bailey. Divorce proceedings that I have read from that time period seem to be more interesting in terms of the concertina, because they will discuss how it was played and used. I quoted from several in my books--they were reported in the newspapers at that time--and they discuss all manner of details about playing in the street, including how much the musician made at it.

 

Just in case, Wes, that you or anyone else sees someone digitize the Bow Street Magistrate's Court records in similar fashion (it is now defunct, so maybe it could someday happen) then I am all ears about the 1907 arrest of concertina player and once prominent Irish songwriter Tom Maguire...I'd love to hear what he had to say about the songs he is reported to have written. Here you can read about what I have been able to find so far: http://angloconcertina.org/files/Maguire_research_note_3.pdf

If I ever get to London again I plan to look up those records, which are now in an archive somewhere there.

 

Cheers,

Dan

Edited by Dan Worrall
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Does a set of bagpipes fit in your pocket?

 

A remarkable entry contains a prisoners defence about pocketpicking a set of bagpipes in 1831.

It is half way down this page.

 

Nothing about concertinas there but I just asked myself - how could anyone be pocketpicking a set of bagpipes. How did the set of bagpipes get into a pocket in the first place? The answer may be in the headline, it happened on St. Patricksday - 160 years ago.

 

As criminal offends have increased I was wondering - do these things happen more often nowadays in UK?

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Here you can read about what I have been able to find so far: http://angloconcertina.org/files/Maguire_research_note_3.pdf.'>http://angloconcertina.org/files/Maguire_research_note_3.pdf.

Cheers,

Dan

 

N.B. Dan, you need to remove the full stop from the end of your link, before it'll work.

 

i.e. http://angloconcertina.org/files/Maguire_research_note_3.pdf

 

Cheers

Dick

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Here you can read about what I have been able to find so far: http://angloconcertina.org/files/Maguire_research_note_3.pdf.'>http://angloconcertina.org/files/Maguire_research_note_3.pdf.

Cheers,

Dan

 

N.B. Dan, you need to remove the full stop from the end of your link, before it'll work.

 

i.e. http://angloconcertina.org/files/Maguire_research_note_3.pdf

 

Cheers

Dick

 

Thanks, Dick. Computers are such sticklers for accuracy!

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It's interesting to see an aeolina (presumably a Wheatstone one) still on sale as late as 1843, in one of the trials here too: http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18430227-935&div=t18430227-935&terms=aeolina#highlight

And was William Wheatstone any relation to Charles? Possibly so given the musical instrument connection.

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And was William Wheatstone any relation to Charles? Possibly so given the musical instrument connection.

 

Possibly so, seeing that they had the same mother and father... :huh:

 

(It was Charles' brother, William Wheatstone, who ran their musical instrument business and manufactured the concertinas.)

Edited by Stephen Chambers
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  • 2 years later...

Interesting to analyse the frequency of mentions of the concertina in the Old Bailey records. I found it made the best sense when broken up into five year periods: (Click on thumbnail to enlarge....)

 

post-11004-0-64804900-1389505003_thumb.gif

 

Seems to suggest that the concertina nicking went in and out of fashion. Perhaps our historical experts could explain why?

 

By comparison, the flute follows quite a different pattern:

 

OldBaileyFluteCases.gif

 

The huge peak coincides with the career of the famous Mr Nicholson. It was said that "one gentleman in ten" played the flute in that period.

 

Terry

Edited by Terry McGee
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