Robert Wornum

Robert Wornum (1780–1852) was a piano maker working in London during the first half of the 19th century. He is best known for introducing small cottage and oblique uprights and an action considered to be the predecessor of the modern upright action which was used in Europe through the early 20th century. His piano manufacturing business eventually became Robert Wornum & Sons and continued half a century after his death.

Art historian Ralph Nicholson Wornum (1812–1877) was his son.

Robert Wornum was born on 1 October 1780, son of music seller and violin maker Robert Wornum (1742–1815), who worked at Glasshouse street, London, and after about 1777, at 42 Wigmore Street, near Cavendish Square. Piano historian Alfred J. Hipkins wrote the younger Wornum was originally intended for the church, but by 1810 had the position of foreman at music sellers Wilkinson & Company at 3 Great Windmill Street and 13 Haymarket.

Wilkinson & Co. were successors to Broderip & Wilkinson, a partnership between Francis Broderip and George Wilkinson which had formed in 1798 following the failure of Longman & Broderip. Wilkinson & Co. was organized following Broderip's death in 1807. According to the family history recorded by Wilkinson's son Henry Broadhurst Wilkinson, the firm had arranged to have tall cabinet upright pianos manufactured for them by Astor and "Leukenfeld" by license under William Southwell's patent. Southwell, who was said to have made the first cabinet upright in 1790, described that it was "so constructed as to prevent the possibility of its being so frequently out of tune", and without "any opening or perforation between the sound-board and the pin block", although his 1807 patent only claimed a new arrangement of its dampers. The Monthly Magazine reported in May, 1808 that Wilkinson & Co. offered to the public "a New Patent, Cabinet Piano-forte", and described that its form was "as curious as convenient," occupying no more room than the smallest bookcase, while its tone was both brilliant and delicate, its touch "peculiarly facile and pleasant" and claimed the strength and simplicity of its construction would tend "to ensure its keeping in tune longer than most other instruments."The Quarterly Musical Register described in early 1812 that by then these instruments were manufactured by other firms as well, and commented "whether they will be adopted as preferable to the square piano forte, time must shew." Wornum's son Alfred later claimed that these instruments were unsuccessful for a time and Broadhurst Wilkinson related that the firm had been obliged to furnish replacements under warrantee when the instruments sold by them were found not to "stand well." By mid-1809, however, the firm advertised that owing to "the great increase of their manufactory of pianos" they had determined to close down their other musical enterprises, and had reduced their entire stock of music to half price and offered favorable terms on all instruments out on hire.

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