George Hart

Born in 1839, he was part of a family trade: his father, John Thomas Hart, taught him violin making, and the family worked from the Hart and Son shop in Wardour Street, Leicester Square, London.

He was more than a craftsman. He also studied music at the Royal Academy of Music under Sir George Macfarren and Prosper Sainton, which helps explain the authority and enthusiasm in his writing about violins and the people who made them.

Hart is best remembered as the author of books including The Violin: Its Makers and its Imitators and The Violin. He died in May 1891, but his writing remained an important doorway into the world of historic violin making.