H. Edwards
In 2018 we were contacted via the Nonsuch Dulcimer Club by someone who had bought an East Anglian style dulcimer in a saleroom and wanted to sell it on. On this dulcimer is a brass plaque with the inscription ‘H. Edwards maker 1891’.
This could possibly be Henry Edwards from Norwich (1863-1955), who owned a dulcimer made by Mark Widdows: this instrument with the maker’s plaque is stylistically very similar to the Widdows dulcimer belonging to “our” Henry Edwards. The most obvious difference is that the Widdows-made one has a unique decorative pattern around the sound-holes, whereas the Edwards-made one has the standard stencilled patterns, but in every other respect it looks almost identical.
It is therefore tempting to construct a scenario in which Henry Edwards from Norwich set about building what amounts to a replica of the Mark Widdows one he already owned, but I must stress this is just conjecture with no concrete evidence, as we don’t even know this maker’s full name or where he lived.
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