Boyds of London pianos

[jbml]

Does anyone here know anything about the piano-makers / sellers Boyds of London?

The 1921 census has my great grandfather Frank Whitney Hardwick working as a manager in their piano warehouse at 19 Holborn, and in 1911 he was also a piano warehouse manager, but the location of the business was not given.

My mother remembers her grandfather being in charge of the Boyds piano shop in Watford.

So far my research has suggested that Boyds traded from about 1860 to 1950, and that although they had a piano factory of their own in Haringey, for the most part they bought in the pianos they sold from whoever offered them the keenest price ... they were very much suppliers of parlour instruments for "aspidistra land". It is estimated that 20 000 Boyd pianos are still in existence, with perhaps 97% of them being uprights, and 3% baby grands.

I would really love to learn a bit more about this business, and my great grandfather's place in it; but I don't know where to look.

If any RootsChatters knows more about it than I do already (and it's quite remarkable what things RootsChatters do turn out to know, between them) and can point me in  the right direction, I should be most grateful.

[ShaunJ]

Per newspaper reports Frank Whitney Hardwick was employed by Murdoch & Co in Cambridge in 1907 and was manager at Messrs Murdoch's pianoforte branch in Tunbridge Wells in 1916.

[jbml]

Ooooohhh ... that's magnificent, Shaun!

Which newspapers are those coming from?

(I knew he'd moved from Cambridge to Tunbridge Wells some time between 1907 and the 1911 census ... but I didn't know who he worked for in Cambridge, or that he was still working for the same people in Tunbridge Wells)

[ShaunJ]

In 1907 there are court reports in various newspapers concerning the prosecution of Frank's father William for breaking into Frank's house and stealing a cashbox belonging to wife Emma. He got 3 months. See Saffron Walden Weekly News,  Cambridge Independent Press, 12 April 1907; Royston Weekly News, Saffron Walden Weekly News, 31 May 1907.

In 1916, the Kent & Sussex Courier of 18 August has a brief report of Frank's hearing at the West Kent Appeal Tribunal (appealing against conscription).

[jbml]

Hi Shaun ... I have reports of the 1907 court cases;  but the ones I have did not mention Frank's employer. I will check out the other ones you have cited.

The appeal against conscription is news to me and I shall certainly read that one with interest!

(He evidently lost, and went on to serve in France with the Royal West Kents where he took a bullet to the head, which he survived. Photographs taken in later life show a distinct crease in the side of his skull which I take to mark the path of the bullet's passage. After recovering from the wound he was evidently deemed unfit for further front line service as he was transferred to the Army Pay Corps. He had yet to be demobbed when my Great Aunt Joan was born in 1919, by which time he had been promoted to corporal ... )

[ShaunJ]

Murdoch, Murdoch & Co are mentioned in his service record as his last employer before the Army.

[jbml]

He has a surviving service record?

I thought his was one of the lost ones ... do please tell me more!

(All I have been able to ascertain previously is that he joined the 2/1st Kent Cyclist Battalion on 27 August 1916, number 2790G and that the 2/1st Kent Cyclist Battalion became the 11 Royal West Kents, when Frank’s regiment number became 19165).

[ShaunJ]

Links to service records on FindMyPast, some overlap and duplication:

https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=GBM%2FWO363-4%2F007299549%2F00221&parentid=GBM%2FWO363-4%2F7299549%2F28%2F221

https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=GBM%2FWO363-4%2F007299549%2F00224&parentid=GBM%2FWO363-4%2F7299549%2F28%2F224

https://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=GBM%2FWO363-4%2F007299549%2F00225&parentid=GBM%2FWO363-4%2F7299549%2F28%2F225

[jbml]

That's magnificent Shaun ... thank you so much!