English firm of music publishers and instrument makers. Although supposedly established in London about 1750, the earliest identifiable figure in the business was Charles Wheatstone (1768–1823), who came from a Gloucester family, and who was active in London from about 1791. The firm was known as Wheatstone & Co. from about 1815. Charles's brother William (b Gloucester, 17 Aug 1775; d London, 12 July 1854) moved with his family to London in 1806, where he became a flute teacher and manufacturer and music seller on his own account from about 1813, holding patents for improvements to the instrument. He also published a number of books of airs for the flute.
His sons, the future Sir Charles Wheatstone (b Gloucester, 6 Feb 1802; d Paris, 19 Oct 1875) and William Dolman (b Gloucester, 1804; d London, 30 Aug 1862) entered their uncle's business, which they took over following his death, and William senior then amalgamated his own business with theirs about 1826. From his youth onwards the younger Charles's attention was largely directed towards scientific subjects, including optics, sound vibrations and electricity. He was famous for his inventions in telegraphy, but he also invented the English Concertina, the patents for which were taken out between 1829 and 1844 and held by the Wheatstone firm for many years. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was knighted in 1868.
The Wheatstone firm published a prodigious amount of sheet music, mostly of a popular nature but including several interesting collections of glees such as The Naval and Convivial Vocal Harmonist (c1807). It also did an extensive trade as makers of and dealers in musical instruments, especially concertinas.
The firm's fortunes declined during the 20th century, and the concertina business was acquired by Besson & Co. about 1944, that firm being itself taken over by Boosey & Hawkes in 1948. Small-scale production of Wheatstone concertinas was maintained until the mid-1970s, when the name, machinery and stock were sold off to Steve Dickinson, who continued to manufacture instruments under the Wheatstone trade mark.
Humphries-SmithMP
LangwillI7
W.G. Adams: ‘On the Musical Inventions and Discoveries of the Late Sir Charles Wheatstone, F.R.S’, PMA, ii (1875–6), 85–91
R.S. Rockstro: A Treatise on the Construction, the History and the Practice of the Flute (London, 1890, 2/1928/R)
B. Bowers: Sir Charles Wheatstone (London, 1975)
N. Wayne: ‘The Wheatstone English Concertina’, GSJ, xliv (1991), 117–49
A.W. Atlas: The Wheatstone English Concertina in Victorian England (Oxford, 1996)
FRANK KIDSON/WILLIAM C. SMITH/PETER WARD JONES