Willis Barnard (1844-1916)
Willis Barnard was born in 1844 in Haslingfield, a village about 4 miles south west of Cambridge, where he lived for his entire life. His father, Henry was a shepherd and Willis himself spent periods working on farms, though he had a variety of other jobs, all at the level of labourer. He and his wife Betsy had twelve children who lived to adulthood, so their home life would have been both busy and cramped.
We know of Willis Barnard as a maker, due to a dulcimer, in private hands, which had been acquired around 2008 from Cambridgeshire instrument-maker and restorer Alec Anness. Alec had it from Marjorie Barnard, who was the daughter of Willis’ youngest son Leonard. During restoration, the information ‘Made by Willis Barnard, Nov 16 1886’ was found written inside the instrument.
Willis’ son Jack (christened John, 1870-1943) inherited this dulcimer and according to the reminiscences of his granddaughter, Rita Ketteridge, writing in 1994, her aunt Alice, Jack’s daughter, said that he played hymns on it on a Sunday night. Rita thought that perhaps someone else in the family had owned it between Jack and his niece Marjorie.
Willis Barnard died at the age of 72 in 1916, working until at least the age of 65 as a farm worker, as evidenced in the 1911 census; although the State Pension had been introduced in 1908, it only applied at the age of 70.
Haslingfield must have been a bit of a hotbed for music and the making of dulcimers, as there were two other dulcimer players and makers, George Wilmott Lawrence and Will Lawrence, in the village at the same time as Willis Barnard was living there, until the mid 1880s.
It’s interesting to think about the relationship between Willis Barnard and the Lawrences, and who might have been the first one to build a dulcimer! Barnard was twenty years older than George and Will Lawrence, so it is tempting to think that he would have been the original, but coincidentally, the dulcimer made by George Lawrence that is currently in the ownership of the Cambridge Museum is also said to be dated 1886!
Willis Barnard’s dulcimer
This instrument has been heavily restored, it’s not clear what the original finish was, or what was the arrangement of the bridges – they are not in East Anglian tuning now, but may have been originally.
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