William Charles Retford (1875–1970) and William R. Retford (1899–1960) were English musical instrument bow-makers, working for the firm of W.E. Hill & Sons. Retford is recognized as developing the Hill bow, along with Alfred Hill. William C. Retford was a perfectionist who became known as the best bow craftsman of his time. He created (and was first to use) the fleur-de-lis design on the best quality gold and tortoiseshell bows. In 1964, William C. Retford wrote "Bows and Bowmakers", which offered a new perspective regarding English bows. William Richard Retford (1899–1960) trained as a

bow maker A bow maker is a person who builds, repairs, and restores ancient or modern bows for bowed string instruments. These include violins, violas, cellos, double basses, viola d'amore, viola da gamba, etc. The French word for bowmaker (bow maker) is ...

with his father. Unfortunately William Richard found it difficult to live up to his father's fame. Although he was employed by the Hills, he mainly worked on rehairing bows.,W.E. Hill & Sons (A Tribute)- Richard Sadler 1996 After the death of William C. Retford, his colleagues Mr. Porter and Mr. Yeoman arranged with William R Retford's daughter that all his tools and other material should be donated to the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments in Oxford in his memory. In addition, they and

Arthur Bultitude Arthur Richard Bultitude (14 January 1908 – 1990) MBE was an English musical instrument bow maker, who spent much of his life working as a craftsman for the firm of W.E. Hill & Sons. Bultitude was brought to and introduced to the Hill shop by W ...

established the nucleus of the Retford Memorial Collection of Bows. The collection includes

viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...

and

viola d'amore The viola d'amore (; Italian for "viol of love") is a 7- or 6- stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin. Structure and sound The viol ...

bows by Edward Dodd.

Notes

References

* ''Bows and Bow-Makers'', by William C. Retford, First edition. London:

The Strad ''The Strad'' is a UK-based monthly classical music magazine about string instrumentsprincipally the violin, viola, cello and double bassfor amateur and professional musicians. Founded in 1889, the magazine provides information, photographs and re ...

(1964). Second edition, Sevenoaks: Novello & Company Ltd., (1972) * ''The Retford Centenary Exhibition'', by Malcolm Sadler, Arthur Bultitude and others, London, Ealing Strings. 1975
Profile at Hill Bows
*W.E. Hill & Sons (A Tribute)- Richard Sadler 1996

External links

The Hill Bow

Pegturning tales
(from ''The Strad'')

Published in ''Hampshire Magazine''; Vol. 20 No. 3 January 1980 Bow makers English musical instrument makers {{UK-music-bio-stub