The life and work of John Clinton, cont.Clinton’s 1851 Instrument
Clinton and Potter persevered, and by 1851 after
three years of effort they obviously thought that they finally had an
instrument which was worthy of public scrutiny.
It is this model which is the subject of our present study. Now that they had a flute with which they were
apparently fully satisfied, Clinton and Potter had to introduce it to
the flute-playing public. Far
from being content with merely trying the instrument out quietly with a
select cross-section of the flute-playing public (although he may well
have done this too), Clinton chose to meet his rivals head-on at the
outset by launching his new flute in the full glare of international
publicity at the World Exhibition of 1851 in London.
This grandiose gesture seems entirely typical of the man whom we
are coming to know, but is mainly significant in that it is
inconceivable that he would have chosen so public a field of action had
he and Potter (on whose stand the flute was exhibited) not both been
genuinely convinced in their own minds of the merits of their flute by
comparison with others. The
competition at this Exhibition was extremely stiff and included designs
by Rudall & Rose, Theobald Boehm, Abel Siccama, Jean-Louis Tulou,
William Card, Richard Carte and Cornelius Ward in addition to the
Clinton/Potter duo. Clinton
must surely have known this in advance and reckoned that his flute could
compete with any of them. It is hoped that our further studies may throw some
light upon Clinton’s judgement in this regard. As time progresses, we
hope to have the opportunity of examining and playing examples of other
flutes which appeared in the 1851 Exhibition, in particular the 1847
Boehm and the 1851 Carte Patent flute, both of which “beat out” the
1851 Clinton in terms of awards. The
authors have their own example of the 1851 Carte which is currently
undergoing restoration prior to a full comparative test.
We expect shortly to have an opportunity to evaluate an example
of the Boehm entry as well. In order to promote the successful launch of his new
design, Clinton wrote the 1851 treatise (op. cit.) to which reference has already been made. This publication
has often been ascribed by previous authors to 1852 (apparently on the
sole basis of a handwritten notation on the copy in the Dayton Miller
collection), but the present authors have been forced to question this
date. Based on an
examination of the instrument, it is beyond doubt that the paper is
describing the previously un-catalogued Potter/Clinton flute which is
the focal point of this study. Moreover,
the paper speaks of the “pending” introduction of this flute to the
public. Since this actually
occurred in 1851 at the Exhibition, we are forced to the conclusion that
the Treatise was written prior to the Exhibition and was published to coincide with the
public release of the new flute at the Exhibition. The fact that it was published by Henry Potter (on whose
stand the flute was exhibited) appears to further support this opinion.
The present authors contend that this Treatise, previously
assigned by other writers to 1852, is almost certainly in fact a
promotional document prepared in 1850 or early 1851 to be made available
on Potter’s stand at the Exhibition in support of the new flute.
Viewed in this context (and in no other), the document makes
perfect sense. It must be remembered that Clinton himself would
have had ready access to examples of most of the competing models, in
particular the Boehm 1847 model which had been on public sale for the
previous 4 years. Accordingly, he would have been well able to make his
own direct comparisons with the opposition beforehand, and must surely
have been absolutely convinced that his new flute could pass any
test. This being the case, the result must have been a
bitter pill for Clinton to swallow. Boehm walked away with the
prestigious Council Award for his silver 1847-model flute, and even
Richard Carte secured an award for Rudall & Rose for the prototype
of the “Boehm patent” version of his 1851 Patent flute (later to
evolve into the “Guards” model). Even
William Card and Jean-Louis Tulou were granted Honourable Mentions in
the official Awards List! Clinton had to be content with a “favourable
mention” in the text of the Jury’s report, worded as follows: "It should also be mentioned that several
improvements are illustrated in Mr. J. Clinton's flute exhibited by Mr.
Potter, in which the facilities of other modern flutes and the ordinary
system of fingering are combined and their defective parts avoided.
In this instrument, the tone and tune are rendered equal by the
same means that Mr. Boehm has adopted (our
emphasis), namely, an
equality of size and distance in the holes. It has likewise claims
to consideration for comparative cheapness, the mechanism being so
simple that its price does not exceed that of the old eight-key
flute".(12) It seems odd that this “favourable mention” did
not translate into an official Honourable Mention in the Awards List for
the Exhibition. Richard
Carte, Rudall & Rose,
William Card and Jean-Louis Tulou were not mentioned at all in the text
of the Jury’s report, although they did
receive Honourable Mentions in the Awards List!!
The only flute designers who merited comment in the Jury’s
report were Boehm and Clinton. This
inconsistency is hard to rationalise! It is also worth mentioning at this point that
Rockstro met Boehm in 1851 at the offices of Rudall & Rose, and
actually tried the award-winning sliver flute.
Rockstro considered the award granted to this flute to tell
“more against the jurors than in favour of the instrument, the
intonation of which was distressingly false” (Article 911, op.
cit.). This statement must be balanced by some
consideration of the jurors to whom Rockstro was referring. The Jury for
musical instruments was composed of a number of distinguished musical
and scientific figures of the day,
including (among others) such luminaries as Sir R. H. Bishop
(Professor of Music at Oxford University), Cipriani Potter (eminent
composer, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music and incidentally
grandson of the eminent flute-maker Richard Potter of London), Sir
George Smart of London (organist and composer of the Chapel Royal),
Henry Wilde of London (Professor at the Royal Academy), and last but by
no means least, the distinguished composer Hector Berlioz of France (11).
To suggest that such a group could not distinguish between a well-tuned
instrument and one with “distressingly false” intonation is clearly
absurd! We will have more
to say about Rockstro’s comments later. We
also intend to test an example of an Exhibition-era Boehm flute to see
for ourselves how good or bad the intonation actually was. The “favourable mention” notwithstanding,
Clinton had signally failed to sweep his rivals from the field.
Not only that, but the fundamental concept behind his flute was still
being credited to Boehm! Many
lesser men might have accepted defeat, but not Clinton. The paucity of
surviving examples suggests that very few of the 1851 Potter/Clinton
flutes were actually sold, but that does not appear to have put Clinton
off at all. In fact it is entirely possible that, following what he
would likely have seen as yet another rejection, he abandoned plans to
put the instrument into large-scale production and instead set himself
to develop further improvements. Once again, we see the reaction to a set-back that we have now come to expect from Clinton – don’t give up, rather pick yourself up and get things moving forward again! If this instrument wasn’t good enough, he would make one that was!! In any event, he carried on unabated in proceeding to further refine the instrument over the next three years, still presumably in collaboration with Potter. Again, his perseverance and confidence in his own abilities is noteworthy, as is his ability to step back and re-evaluate his own ideas while never losing sight of his ultimate goal. |