Roll Out the Barrel…

By Elizabeth Talbot

Renowned collectors and restorers of barrel pianos, the late Colin and Milly Williams, are to be celebrated and remembered this month, when their prized personal collection is offered for auction at TW Gaze Diss Auction Rooms on Thursday 19 September.

The 25 or so lots will include 15 barrel pianos, accessories and mechanisms, organettes, a music box and table, an Edison Phonograph with horn and cylinders, and a Polyphon and accessories. Pre-auction estimates range from £100 – 150 to £3,000 – 4,000. Most of the pieces have been lovingly restored and conserved by Colin and Milly over the years. The auction will also contain consignments from other vendors and local specialists. The event should prove a good draw for fellow-enthusiasts, near and far.

Colin and Milly lived in Bury St. Edmunds between 1983 and 1995 and collected and restored barrel pianos and other mechanical musical instruments. They regularly travelled across the region, sharing their passion and playing the pianos to raise funds for local charities.

A barrel piano is a stringed instrument in which a simple pianoforte action is worked by a pinned barrel turned with a crank-handle, rather by a keyboard mechanism. It is associated primarily with street musicians and is believed to have been developed in London early in the 19th Century.

Canon Algernon Wintle (1881 – 1959), born in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, had also been a player of street organs for charity in and around Bury St. Edmunds, after he became rector of All Saints’ Church in nearby Lawshall in 1923.

As a boy in 1880’s London, he used to follow the street organs about, learning many of the tunes as he went. As an adult, his love of street organs fuelled a hobby and in 1926 he registered The East Anglian Automatic Piano Company. Apart from securing himself some additional income, he provided employment to many local people during the years of agricultural depression in the 1930’s. One of his employees, Alec Todd, taught Colin and Milly much of the knowledge and many of the necessary skills they then went on to apply to projects over the years.

In 1995 Colin and Milly relocated to Alderney, taking their mechanical musical collection with them. Whilst there, they continued to restore the pianos which included making, marking and pinning new barrels. In 2004 Colin published 'A Passion for Barrel Pianos' which is a comprehensive guide to the restoration and re pinning of barrel pianos.

 The collection has been transported back to East Anglia, all the way from Alderney, an island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, especially for the occasion. Returning the collection to East Anglia for sale at TW Gaze made perfect sense for the family. Not only does it bring many pieces “back home”, but the auction is being managed by a firm that has dispersed several significant collections of mechanical music over the years, including The Richard Bertram Collection, in 2019. TW Gaze is also a leading supporter of the internationally recognised Diss Organ Festival which is held throughout the town every couple of years.

Further information, including illustrated catalogue and bidding instructions via twgaze.co.uk.