Distin Family - Henri Distin

Henri Distin

Following the acclaimed but financially failed American tour, Henri Distin established an instrument manufacturing and sales concern, Distin & Co., in London after 1849. He sold Adolph Sax’s instruments alongside his own traditional brass instruments. Following receipt of a prize medal for the superiority of his instruments over European competitors at the Paris World’s Exposition, in 1868, he sold the business including a shop on Cranbourne to what would become the Boosey company and later Boosey and Hawkes. The acquisition of Distin’s brass instrument manufacturing positioned Boosey to become a well-respected brass instrument company in the late 19th through mid-20th century. Distin would subsequently lose most of his money on concert schemes and other ventures within a few years.

In 1876, Henri Distin returned to the United States and set-up a small business manufacturing cornets in New York. In 1882 he relocated to Williamsport Pennsylvania to produce instruments in partnership. The company would take his name in 1885 as the Henri Distin Manufacturing Company making a full line of brass instruments.

Henri Distin remained a performer and marketer of brass instruments. At the age of 70, he was still performing, playing "Tis the Last Rose of Summer" on an E-flat Tuba with the Gillmore Band in 1889 while attending the concert for the original purpose of presenting one of his company’s horns to Gillmore.