Walter Finter (1856-1940)
Walter Thomas Finter was born in late 1856, in the village of Combs just outside Stowmarket in central Suffolk.
In his early days he worked on farms in Combs, as did his father before him, but by 1883-4 he had moved to the nearby small town of Needham Market, where he then worked as a watchmaker from at least 1891 onwards. He is known to have made dulcimers, as labels have been found on two dulcimers, one with the date 1896 on it, also signed and numbered No. 20. The dulcimer labels reveal a wide range of services offered from his workshop on the High Street, including jewellery, watch and clock making, repairs and annual winding, picture frames made to order and scissors and razors ‘carefully’ ground. A 1930s newspaper report states that he also tuned pianos. How he made the move from untrained agricultural labourer to watchmaker is not known, but it seems unlikely that he had any sort of formal apprenticeship, as he was a married man with a young son by the time he made the change. We may guess from this and the fairly basic construction of his dulcimers that he was not a fine craftsman but a self-taught enthusiast.
The Finter home in Needham Market was Langham House, at 42 High Street. Local memories are that, in the 1920s at least, there was no actual shop, but watches were still mended there, and in 1925 Walter Finter (aged 70) was still listed in Kelly’s Directory as a watchmaker. At the age of 80 he still rode a bicycle every day, and died aged 83 in 1940, still living on the High St with his youngest daughter Rhona.
Newspaper articles have revealed more about Walter’s musical activities. He sang and played the banjo, violin and English concertina as well as the dulcimer. A photo taken by his son Percy, circa 1935, shows him with a wooden cabinet apparently containing some sort of dancing dolls, possibly operated by clockwork. The accompanying report reveals that he was known by the nickname ‘Fiddler Finter’. He joined the Salvation Army while in his twenties and newspaper reports from 1890 onwards mention him playing and singing in Salvation Army concerts in the Stowmarket area and in Debenham, a little to the north. Reports of his musical contributions start from 1890, but the dulcimer is only mentioned in 1912. He was also a member of the Temperance League, so we may surmise that he was unlikely to have been a pub player.
Walter’s son Percy (Percival William, 1882-1952), who took the photo for the newspaper article was also a musician whose main instrument was the violin (he also played viola on occasion). Newspaper sources reveal that he attended Theobald’s Grammar School in Needham Market and performed a violin solo in a school concert aged sixteen, when ‘he played fairly well for so young a lad’. In 1906 he moved to Bildeston, where he established a hairdressing and photography business and from 1939 he was the sub-postmaster. He led a string band and a dance orchestra (very active and popular in the 1930s) and taught many others to play music. His son Everett Macdonald (1915-2005) was the third generation of the family to have a musical talent, being a cello player as evidenced in the newspaper report below, from 1938.
Local memories of another son, Russell, a tailor by trade, are that in the 1940s when working for Ipswich clothing manufacturers Phillips and Pipe, he was also known by the nickname of ‘Fiddler’, but it’s not known whether he was actually a musician or not, or whether he had just inherited his father’s nickname.
Walter Finter’s dulcimers
Walter Finter signed, dated and numbered his instruments – but inside, where it can only be found by taking off the back of the instrument. We know he had made at least 25 by 1908, three of which are documented on this website.
More photos and information about Walter Finter’s dulcimers
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