Robert Wornum - Robert Wornum & Sons

Robert Wornum & Sons

At the 1851 London Exhibition Robert Wornum & Sons exhibited cottage uprights, and downstriking bichord semi-grand and square pianos. Their Albion semi-grand was noted as a good example of how the downstriking action allowed for a simpler and more economical construction without metallic bracing, and they were awarded a prize medal for their improved piccolo piano—placing them after Erard, of Paris and London, who won the council medal for pianos, and at the same level as twenty-two other piano manufacturers, including Broadwood & Sons of London, Schiedmayer & Söhne, Stuttgart, Pape, Paris, and Jonas Chickering, Boston.

Robert Wornum died on 29 September 1852 after a short illness. He was succeeded by his son Alfred Nicholson Wornum.

The firm exhibited at the 1855 Exposition Universelle but failed to win an award.

In 1856 A. N. Wornum patented improvements to downstriking actions with a spring to keep the crank lever in constant contact with the key, as well as a new arrangement for the regulating button to allow easier adjustment and a method for improving repetition with a spring, and in 1862 patented further improvements with the aim of rendering the action very compact by moving the dampers below the hammers and operating them by projections attached at the far ends of the escapement levers. He also claimed a pivoting stand for square pianos in order for them to swing up and out of the way when not in use.

Robert Wornum & Sons exhibited cottage and grand pianos as well as their "folding" square at the 1862 International Exhibition in London, receiving a medal for "novelty of invention in piano"—one of almost seventy piano manufacturers to receive a prize medal including Broadwood, L. Boesendorfer of Vienna, Pleyel, Wolff & Cie, Paris, and Steinway & Sons, New York. They exhibited a piccolo upright, as well as moderately priced downstriking grand and square pianos without metal bracings at the 1867 Universal Exposition in Paris, where they were awarded a bronze medal, at the same level as J. Brinsmead of London, J. Promberger, Vienna, and Hornung & Moeller, Copenhagen, among others, but below the level of most of the manufacturers judged to be their equals in previous exhibitions.

In 1866 A. N. Wornum patented methods of extending sounding boards beyond the wrestplank bridge in uprights and downstriking grands, which he claimed would improve their higher notes, and patented improvements in grands in 1870. Earlier that year Robert Wornum & Sons had advertised that their "new patent construction" allowed a reduction of over 100 guineas in the price of their grand pianos, as well as insuring "a full, sweet tone and an elastic touch", and by 1871 the firm offered four sizes between 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm) and 8 feet 6 inches (259 cm) on the new plan, priced between 56 and 96 guineas ($260 to $450). A reporter for the Journal of the Society of Arts on the Second Annual International Exhibition held in London in 1872, however, described the tone of the wooden frame pianos the firm displayed as "sweet, but hardly full or forcible enough."

A. N. Wornum patented further improvements in grands in 1875, introducing hammers with reversed orientation in order to permit longer strings relative to the size of the piano, and the firm displayed short ("under six foot") and full size ("8 feet") "Iron Grand Pianofortes" on this plan, along with a piccolo upright at the 1878 Universal Exposition in Paris, for which they were awarded a silver medal. This placed them again at the same level as Brinsmead (though this firm's founder was awarded the medal of the Legion of Honor on the same occasion), as well as Kriegelstein, Paris and Charles Stieff, Baltimore.

Hipkins wrote in the article on Wornum in the 1889 volume of the Dictionary of Music and Musicians that "he present head of the firm of Robert Wornum & Sons is Mr. A. N. Wornum, who has succeeded to his grandfather's inventive talent."

According to Frank Kidson the firm was "still an important one in the pianoforte trade" in early 1900, but Harding lists this year as their last entry in the London directories as piano manufacturers.