ROSAMOND HARDING
Rosamond Harding's name is well known to anyone who has studied the history of the piano.
Her 1933 publication The Pianoforte ― its history traced to the Great Industrial Exhibition, 1851 was so far ahead of any contemporary study that it remained the leader in the field for fifty years. But who was the author? No one seemed to know anything about her, and no one living seemed to have any recollection of meeting her, so Michael Cole set about some research. The information below is a basic summary; to read the full text consult the Galpin Society Journal, 2007.
1898 Rosamond Harding born at Doddington, near March, Cambridgeshire, the first child of Ambrose and Adela Harding.
1899 Rosamond is one year old when the family moves to Histon Manor, Cambridge.
Histon Manor, Rosamond's home 1899 - 1927
1906 Her only sibling, Thomas Harding, is born. He is handicapped and is not considered for inheritance. Rosamond lives an isolated childhood.
1922 Previously educated by her father, with short spells in a number of private schools, she applies to Newnham College to read for a music degree.
Portrait photograph c.1920
1925 Undergraduate course not completed. (For reasons unknown she never sat final exams, so no degree was awarded.)
1927 On the death of Rosamond's grandfather, Col. T. Walter Harding, Ambrose Harding inherits Madingley Hall, a mansion built c.1543, which becomes the family home.
1927 Though she has no first degree she begins research for Ph.D., funded by her father, tutored by Prof. Dent.
Madingley Hall, painstakingly restored by her grandfather, Col. T. Walter Harding,
former Lord Mayor of Leeds and great benefactor of that city. [Photo: Michael Cole]
1931 Rosamond completes her thesis: The Pianoforte ― its history traced to the Great Industrial Exhibition, 1851 and is awarded her Ph.D.
1933 A trust fund set up by Ambrose Harding funds publication of her thesis (dropping some illustrations but otherwise with miniscule changes). It is printed and sold by Cambridge University Press. She also publishes a modern edition of Ludovico Giustini's Twelve Sonatas for Pianoforte of 1732.
1933 A concert at Newnham College features Giustini's sonatas and eighteenth-century songs using a Longman & Broderip square piano. Perhaps this was the first concert using such a piano in the twentieth century.
1936 She qualifies for her pilot's licence, logging 136 hours flying in light aircraft.
1937 Only 93 copies of The Pianoforte had been sold in four years, so she reduced the price from £2.10.0 to £1.10.0
1939 She is rejected (as were other well qualified female applicants) for war time service in the air.
1940 She volunteers for service as an Air Raid Warden in Cambridge.
1940 She publishes An Anatomy of Inspiration. By far her most successful book, its initial print run [1000] sells out within the year.
1942 Both her parents died this year. Last 4 copies of The Pianoforte sold @ 14 shillings each. It is presumed that fewer than 220 copies were sold altogether.
1945 Publishes her first poem in Poetry of Today.
1948 Rosamond Harding continues at first to live at Madingley Hall, subject to her father's trustees. However, they opt to sell it to the university in 1948. [Madingley Hall is today used for the Department of Continuing Education. Part of the land was used for the American Cemetery, prominently signposted in the area.]
1949 Rosamond rents Icomb Place, a very ancient house near Stow-on-the-Wold, where she kept her large collection of musical instruments.
Icomb Place. (Photo: Michael Cole)
1954 Her lease ends so she leaves Icomb, and has to sell some instruments at Sotheby's, in December.
These include a 1769 Zumpe & Buntebart square piano, a c.1700 Italian Harpsichord, and a very fine bass viol by Henry Jaye.
1960 Second hand copies of The Pianoforte have become very scarce, yet interest in the subject is rising. She rejects various offers for reprinting, insisting that she will bring out a new, corrected edition herself.
1967 A fourth edition of Anatomy of Inspiration is published to more critical acclaim.
1973 Forty years after its original publication a pirate edition of The Pianoforte is published by Da Capo Press, New York. Rosamond was not consulted, not paid, and not pleased. Though it was useless to protest, as American law offered no remedy, she places a notice in The Times to express her annoyance.
1978 Her long awaited second edition of The Pianoforte is at last published, but it turns out to be only a photo reprint with very minor changes. Many serious mistakes go unchanged. Nearing 80 years of age, and out of touch with recent research, she was not equal to the task.
1982 Rosamond Harding dies at her home in Southwold, Suffolk. (It is now a holiday cottage, locate via search engines. Type: Jersey Lodge, Southwold.
Madingley Church interior
Family Monument fixed to the north wall in Madingley Church
1982 By her will the Victoria & Albert Museum was offered her residual instrument collection, but her offer was declined.
1989 Posthumous second reprint of the 'second edition' of Harding's The Pianoforte.
For a full biographical account and assessment of her work see Galpin Society Journal 2007.
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