Flute identification help, please

Irish Flute
1

I have recently acquired a box full of fllutes and bits of flutes. One of them is clearly a 19c English, 8-key wooden flute.

It has a stamp on it - the stamp appears to be a three-line stamp, although the top line is so faint that it could possibly be my/our imagination in looking at the thing. Maybe there are only two lines to the stamp. At any rate, what is certain is that the bottom line says “London”. The line above that is curved and appears to include the following letters (this is culled from three of us here, one of whom is the fortunate possessor of young eyes; wish i had some, but they tend to come pre-fitted):

P C ROGER

We are not absolutely sure of any of those letters. For instance, where I have gaps above, there could be another letter or symbol. The initial ‘P’ could possibly be an ‘R’ or, just conceivably, an ‘F’. The ‘C’ looks reasonably clear, as does the ‘O’, but the ‘R’ at the start of ‘ROGER’ could be a ‘P’, ‘F’ or even an ‘E’, and the possessor of our young eyes thinks that is could even be an ‘H’. The ‘GER’ looks reasonably clear, but who knows?

Does all of this make any sense to anybody? We think the flute looks to be a fairly nice example: GS, block-mounted keys, lapped keys on the foot joint, lovely tone, even though it is currently in a fairly lamentable state, with a cracked headjoint and leaks everywhere.

If anybody knows anything, it would be appreciated.

2

Couldn’t be CROGER by any chance could it? First name options would then be:

T (Thomas)
Richard (presumably R, but that is not noted)
E.C. (Emma Caroline)

Emma is listed as a Harmonicon Maker (now called Harmonica), but there is a fife listed with that name.

The only other *****GER I could find in London was Banger, part of Clementi, Banger, Collard & Davis.

If my name were Banger, I’d be looking to team up with my brother and someone called Mash.

Terry

3
4

R CROGER could be a serious contender. Thanks, Terry.

5

Right, here are some photos , or at least, attempts at photos of the problem:

6

I think Terry’s got it. I think it’s R CROGER.

Right. What do we know about him then?

7

Believed to be son of Thomas (listed 1845-49), certainly his successor. Listed at Epping Place, Mile End from 1850 to 1860, then 184 Whitechapel Rd from 1861 to 1870.

Thomas (and therefore possibly Richard) used the Royal Arms as a mark, and also “Improved Patent” which is almost certainly untrue, but not uncommon!

Thomas’ name reappears at 1861 at 483 Oxford St, the same address as Emma Caroline subsequently used from 1865.

Terry

8

Thanks Terry. Is this all from Langwill’s (not that I really know what that is) or do you have other sources?

The flute’s missing its crown and foot ring. Other than that it seems like a nice flute. I daresay someone not a million miles away will do it up for me at some point. I wonder if it’s likely to be a nice player? Seems that way, even in its beat-up state.

9

Yep, available from Tony Bingham (and Amazon etc) for £60.00. Or if you want it in leather:

http://www.oldmusicalinstruments.com/books/books_detail.php?id=1762&cat=DR&books=d

Terry

10

Hi,
I’ve got a flute which appears to be by the same P Croger of London. The letters are very faint, but are very similar to yours. The P could be an R as Terry suggested, there might be a “tail” on the P (as there seems to be on your photos also.) It’s an eight keyed flute also.

11

Thread revival!

So, with major blushes over how long it has taken :really: :poke: :waah: , I have at long last completed the restoration of Ben’s R Croger flute and it’s back with him. I’ve posted a YT demo video: https://youtu.be/RKVVasBPIgE. I haven’t posted a full photo set about it anywhere, but may do so if I can find the time, in which case I’ll add links to this thread.

Here are the details of the flute itself and of work done:

Richard Croger flute

Basic information

8-key simple system concert flute
Overall length: 647mm (incl. new crown but excluding stopper finial)
Sounding length: 580mm
C#-Eb: 254mm
Materials: cocuswood with German Silver (cupro-nickel) fittings and tinned brass liner tubes/tuning slide
Very usable at A440 with mid-range slide extension
Large-medium tone-holes

The maker, Richard Croger was active from at least as early as 1850 when his business separated from that of his elder brother, Thomas, and his business continued after his death in 1895 until 1912. Whether he actually made flutes or bought in trade instruments is unknown. For biographical information cf https://www.ourfamilypast.com/article/person/171/richard-croger
(The maker’s stamp, “R Croger”, on the upper body only, is very small and faint and does not include an address, just “London”)

Restoration details

As received, the salient repair issues the flute had besides a general overhaul being required were: a wide crack the full length of the head, a crack in the upper tenon of the upper body, a crack in the lower body socket, the divider between the low C# and C touch arms was snapped off, the long F main block key-way was too wide and uneven, the keyed tone-hole rims all needed tidying up and the long F hole rim had a chip out of it. (There is an old, well done block graft of the whole G# key block, although the key-way slot in it is slightly off-centre of the tone-hole and contributes to the G# key sitting slightly awkwardly high in relation to the open tone-holes). The crown and stopper were entirely missing, as was the foot end ring.

Work done

Reduction & repair of head crack by extraction of metal liner, steaming of wood to allow closing up of crack, gluing of crack, pinning (x4 oblique carbon fibre pins), enlargement of bore and refitting of metal liner, cosmetic top-dressing of crack line.

Upper body upper tenon crack glued and v-filed and filled in the bore.

Lower body socket crack glued, v-filed and filled in bore, pinned (x2 oblique carbon fibre pins).

Long F main block key-way bushed on upper side with wood and re-fitted to the key.

Foot main block divider between C# & C key touch arms glued back.

All keyed tone-holes refaced and chip in long F hole rim repaired.

Suitable replacement ring found and fitted to foot end.

The G# key position/alignment was not addressed save by bending the key itself to reduce the risk of accidental contact with it by the L3 finger as much as possible.

Full overhaul – removal of all metal parts except the barrel liner tube, removal of old pads and buffers, cleaning and polishing of all parts (wood & metal), repadding, fitting of new buffer corks, new thread lappings to tenons, adjustment of key actions.

Supply of new cocuswood crown and blackwood stopper core by Robert Bigio (Aug 2020) (fitted with new cork)

Note: Unfortunately I was not able to get the pewter plug low C#/C keys working properly/to my satisfaction despite considerable effort. Ideally new seats (receiving rings), mounting screws and pewter plugs are required, or at least the holes/chamfers in the rings should be recut and new, larger pewter plugs fitted (the C# plug in particular is too small). For the time being I have them working adequately (really pretty well!) by putting three layers of cling-film over the pewter plugs – which can be renewed as necessary.

Observations

The flute plays usably at modern Concert pitch A440 with pretty fair scale intonation (using standard key-vented fingerings) with the tuning slide extended around half its scope (c13mm for me). There is a degree of “flat foot syndrome”, most notably on low Eb and C#, but it’s not extreme/disruptive to playing. The embouchure hole is unusually elongated (13mm) and narrow (just over 10mm) and plays very nicely - sweetly, easily and quite strongly. All three registers are readily accessible up to high C’’’’.

The G# key is mounted unusually high around the tube relative to the fingered open holes, while the long F key is mounted unusually low (around, not along). Even allowing that the G# is perhaps a little higher than it may have been in the original block/key-way, I think it would still have been high as originally placed. The upshot is that to avoid accidental contact with the G# touch (and I have bent it down as far as feasible!) by L3 on the A hole one has to assemble the flute with the L hand holes (upper body joint) turned farther out than normal (i.e. pointing straight up). Then, in order for the long F key to be comfortably accessible to L4, one must align it in such a way that the R hand holes are turned significantly inwards compared to the L hand ones (in fact more-or-less pointing straight up). I think that, even were the G key mounted a little lower (this could be done by bushing and recutting the key-way), the position of the G# tone-hole indicates that the flute was originally built with this need to roll the L hand outwards from the R hand – the exact opposite of the Nicholson set-up with the R hand rolled outwards from the L hand. However, in practice the R hand will be set as on a non-Nicholson instrument while the L hand is turned significantly outwards

My recommendation for assembly/alignment is to set the upper side of the long F key touch approximately level with the lower side of the G# key-way, then set the foot so that the outward side of the low C touch is aligned with the outer edge of the R3 E hole and the embouchure hole so that its outer edge is aligned with the centre of the R hand (i.e. not the L hand!) tone-holes. The comfortable/convenient placement of the Bb thumb key and R1 long C key touches with this set-up convinces me this was as the maker envisaged it should be, regardless of the later slight upward misalignment of the G# key. (If one realigned the G# key as suggested above, it would only be by about 1.5mm downward around the tube and the side of the long F key would then need to be set at about halfway across the repositioned G# shank/key-way, so the L hand/upper body would not be very much rotated inwards.)

YouTube post-restoration video demo: https://youtu.be/RKVVasBPIgE

Other useful/relevant threads on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/698186693640566/permalink/2483841881741696 (thread about the Crogers)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/tunesdaytuesdays/permalink/879549416119767 (video using this flute)
https://www.facebook.com/jemtheflute/posts/10159056072224271 (video using this flute)

For further related biographical information, see: https://www.ourfamilypast.com/article/person/178/emma-caroline-mason about E C Croger, Thomas’ widow – the article includes an advertisement of Richard Croger’s.
There is further information about other members of the family and their musical connections on other pages of the same website: https://www.ourfamilypast.com/article/person/168/rebecca-croger, https://www.ourfamilypast.com/article/topic/616/pianos-umbrellas-or-fish