Robert Wornum - Wilkinson & Wornum and The Unique Upright

Wilkinson & Wornum and The Unique Upright

In 1810, according to Broadhurst Wilkinson, Wilkinson borrowed £12,000 ($53,000) to form a partnership with Wornum, and leased houses at 315 Oxford street and Princes street, adjoining Hanover Square, for warerooms, factory and residences, with the yard behind 11 Princes street used for seasoning lumber.

In 1811 Wornum patented a small bichord upright standing about three feet three inches tall (99 cm) styled the "unique". Its strings were stretched diagonally from the top to the right side of the case and communicated with a small sounding board, and the case itself was divided in half with separate parts containing the action and keyboard, and strings and frame. Wornum's escapement worked directly upon a padded notch on the hammer butt and in this way could omit the intermediate lever used in many square pianos and Southwell's cabinet uprights, and the hammer was returned to its resting position by a spring fixed to the hammer rail instead of by its own weight or that of the sticker. Like Southwell, Wornum used overdampers that pressed against the strings above the hammers and were mounted on levers hinged from a separate rail, but the wires that raised them were to be acted upon by the backward oriented base of the escapement instead of by the sticker or the hammer. Wornum also claimed a buff stop, operated by the left pedal which muted one of the strings of each note. Two articles published in 1851 indicate that the firm built several hundred of these pianos.

One of the firm's cabinet uprights was illustrated in the February 1812 issue of The Repository of Arts under the heading "Fashionable Furniture", with the explanation that these had become a much requested item due to their improvements which "procured this instrument a very high degree of reputation". The brief note described that they ranged from six feet to seven feet two inches high (183 to 218 cm) and were available in mahogany as well as rosewood with brass, and praised their "unrivalled" touch and the suitability of their tone—particularly of the instruments with two strings per note—for accompanying voice.

Wilkinson & Wornum's Oxford street facilities were destroyed by fire in October 1812. The proprietors quickly announced that the greater part of their finished stock had been saved, in part by their neighbors and other volunteers, and was ready for sale at 11 Princes street only a few days afterwards, but a collection was started for their upwards of seventy workmen who had lost all of their tools and were unable to return to work. At a meeting of the firm's creditors in November, Wilkinson's father, Charles Wilkinson, agreed not to make a claim against them and guaranteed payment to the other creditors, and in early 1813 he forgave what the partners owed him. Wilkinson & Wornum was dissolved on 3 March 1813. Wilkinson established his own piano factory behind his new house at 32 Howland street, and Wornum, possibly having sold his patent to music seller John Watlen, of Leicester place, removed to 42 Wigmore street.

• Oxford and Princes street, ca. 1792

• Wigmore and Welbeck street ca. 1792