A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Collard

COLLARD. This firm of pianoforte-makers in Grosvenor Street and Cheapside, London, is in direct succession, through Muzio Clementi, to Longman and Broderip, music publishers located at No. 26 Cheapside, as the parish books of St. Vedast show, as long ago as 1767. Becoming afterwards pianoforte-makers, their instruments were in good repute here and abroad, and it is a tradition that Gieb's [App. p.594 "Geib's"] invention of the square hopper or grasshopper was first applied by them. Their business operations were facilitated by money advances from Clementi, whose position as a composer and pianist was the highest in England. The fortunes of Longman and Broderip do not appear to have been commensurate with their enterprise: Clementi, about 1798–1800, had to assume and remodel the business, and the Haymarket branch passing into other hands we find him in the early years of this century associated with F. W. Collard and others, presumably out of the old Longman and Broderip concern, pianoforte makers in Cheapside. There can be no doubt that the genius of this eminent musician applied in a new direction bore good fruit, but it was F. W. Collard, whose name appears in the Patent Office in connection with improvements in pianofortes as early as 1811, who impressed the stamp upon that make of pianofortes which has successively borne the names of 'Clementi' and of 'Collard and Collard.' The description of the improvements from time to time introduced by the house will be found under Pianoforte. The present head of the firm (1877) is Mr. Charles Lukey Collard.

[ A. J. H. ]