Walter Henry Mayson
Walter Henry Mayson (8 November 1835 - 31 December 1904) was an English violin maker.
Biography
[edit]Walter Henry Mayson was born in Cheetwood, then a small town about a mile and a half north of Manchester. He was the fourth child out of eleven with five brothers and four sisters.[1] After a few years the Mayson family moved to Cheetham Hill, another two miles away from Manchester. Mrs. Mayson opened a school there with two of her sisters. Mayson was sent to the school and was taught by Thomas Whalley.
At seventeen, Mayson was apprenticed at J. & A. Phillips & Co., a firm of merchants. His sister, Mary Ann, was married to a composer and organist, Joseph Thorne Harris of Manchester Cathedral, Manchester. Mayson spent all of his leisure time at his sister's house, where his love for music was encouraged.[1] Told that his dead grandfather's fiddle was for sale, he struck a bargain with the owner, and started taking lessons. His mother, Elizabeth Green, was the daughter of William Green the landscape painter.[2]
On 18 November 1904 Mayson had a paralytic seizure. On 26 December he had another stroke and did not regain consciousness before his death on 31 December.
Fiddle making
[edit]At age 39, Mayson started to make fiddles.[3] He took a room in Barton Arcade, Deansgate, Manchester where he produced 10 fiddles. His first customer, James Fildes, paid £10. During this period Mayson also wrote, and some of his songs and essays were published in Manchester newspapers. In 1899, he wrote a book called Violin Making.[4]
References
[edit]- ^ a b William Meredith Morris (1906). Walter H. Mayson: an account of the life and work of a celebrated modern violin maker. Caxton Press. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
- ^ Burkett, Mary E.; Sloss, J. D. G.; Green, William; Burkett, M. E. (1984). William Green of Ambleside: a lake district artist ; Abbot Hall Art Gallery [Kendal, April - June 1984]. Abbot Hall Art Gallery. Kendal: Abbot Hall Art Gallery. ISBN 978-0-9503335-4-0.
- ^ William Meredith Morris (1906). Walter H. Mayson: an account of the life and work of a celebrated modern violin maker. Caxton Press. p. 24. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
- ^ William Meredith Morris (1906). Walter H. Mayson: an account of the life and work of a celebrated modern violin maker. Caxton Press. p. 73. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
External links
[edit]- Works by Walter Henry Mayson at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Walter Henry Mayson at the Internet Archive
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