Silvertone fife?

[Terry McGee]

Hi all

Anyone come across fifes like this?



There's an argument that they were made in Brisbane, Australia, which is not outlandish, in that the level of technology is not high, but seems to me to be a bit improbable, as I'm not convinced we had the market. But hey, stranger things have happened.

But I've had communication from a lady who believes her father's Silvertone came from the UK. So, what can you tell me?

[ajay]

Hi Terry,

I bought one from Palings Music Store in Brisbane in 1973. Mine resembles the one pictured below.
School fife bands were popular in the 1930s in Australia
According to the Museum of Applied Arts and sciences site, they were made in Brisbane.
https://collection.maas.museum/object/347250



cheers
Andrew

[ajay]

... and a little further digging turns up a wealth of information on the Drouyn & Drouyn Drum Co. in Brisbane who manufactured 40,000 Silvertone fifes.
https://www.troutsounds.com/home/drums/drouyn/history/

[Terry McGee]

Yeah, that's about all I'm turning up, too, ajay. It just strikes me as a bit weird that a drum company in Brisbane would have made 40,000 fifes! Now, "fife and drum" might be the obvious connection - Henry Potter's, formerly of London but more recently removed to Aldershot combined both, along with military brass. A one-stop-shop.

And you might be right drawing attention to the use in schools of simple system flutes back then. My former musical acoustics guru, the late Prof Neville Fletcher, learned to play the F band flute at school back in the forties, before going on to a wooden form of Boehm's newly fanged contraption later.

Mine is a bit different from the one pictured above. The words to right of embouchure say: "Silvertone C Drouyn Bris"