Walter Henry Mayson

Walter Henry Mayson (born November 8, 1835) was an English violin maker.

Biography

Walter Henry Mayson was born in Cheetwood, then a small town about a mile and a half north of Manchester. He was the fourth child out of eleven with five brothers and four sisters.[1] After a few years the Mayson family moved to Cheetham Hill, another two miles away from Manchester. Mrs. Mayson opened a school there with two of her sisters. Mayson was sent to the school and was taught by Thomas Whalley.

At seventeen, Mayson was apprenticed at J. & A. Phillips & Co., a firm of merchants. His sister, Mary Ann, was married to a composer and organist, Joseph Thorne Harris of Manchester Cathedral, Manchester. Mayson spent all of his leisure time at his sister's house, where his love for music was encouraged.[1] Told that his dead grandfather's fiddle was for sale, he struck a bargain with the owner, and started taking lessons. Mayson had by this time married Elizabeth Green, daughter of William Green the landscape painter.

On November 18, 1904, Mayson had a paralytic seizure. On December 26, he had another stroke and did not regain consciousness until his death on December 31.

Fiddle making

At age 39, Mayson started to make fiddles.[2] He took a room in Barton Arcade, Deansgate, Manchester where he produced 10 fiddles. His first customer, James Fildes, paid £10. During this period Mayson also wrote, and some of his songs and essays were published in Manchester newspapers. In 1899, he wrote a book called Violin Making.[3]

References
  1. William Meredith Morris (1906). Walter H. Mayson: an account of the life and work of a celebrated modern violin maker. Caxton Press. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  2. William Meredith Morris (1906). Walter H. Mayson: an account of the life and work of a celebrated modern violin maker. Caxton Press. p. 24. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  3. William Meredith Morris (1906). Walter H. Mayson: an account of the life and work of a celebrated modern violin maker. Caxton Press. p. 73. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
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