In recent articles we have mainly looked at instruments made in the United Kingdom. Being an Australian museum the Powerhouse Museum’s collection naturally enough has a major emphasis on collecting musical instruments made by Australian makers.

Over the last thirty years or so several Australian flute makers have emerged making extremely high quality instruments, but prior to this there are very few Australian makers that can be identified. Jordan Wainwright, for example, is probably the only one to be found professionally making flutes in Australia during the latter half of the nineteenth century. These were simple system instruments with up to eight keys. However, it was not until the twentieth century that Boehm system flutes began to be made in Australia by another maker, Clewin Harcourt.

Harcourt’s life is both fascinating and poignant. Born in the Victorian town of Dunolly in 1870, he displayed an aptitude for art from a young age and eventually studied at the National Gallery School in Melbourne under one of Australia’s most famous artists, Frederick McCubbin. This was a time when some other painters associated with the school would later become some of Australia’s finest artists such as Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts.By the end of his first year, the 17 year old Harcourt had been awarded a prize for his drawing ability. During the next year tragedy struck his family when his father, a lawyer, was assaulted and left with permanent injuries from which he died twelve months later. Harcourt, being the oldest child, was forced to leave art school and work to earn a living to support the rest of his family.

Over the ensuing years, the young Harcourt acquired many valuable skills that would later help his flute making.Initially he went to the silver mines of Broken Hill in far western New South Wales, working first as a storekeeper and then with the electric lighting at the mine. Hearing of the gold discoveries in the town of Coolgardie in Western Australia he moved there with his mother and younger brother sometime in the early 1890s. Not having any luck, he went to Perth and worked first as a sign writer and then as a draughtsman in the Land Titles Office. Wanting to go to Europe but having little money he then tried his luck again at the Western Australian gold mines, this time in Leonora with some success. By 1900 he had left Australia for Europe.

Once in Europe Harcourt went to Antwerp to study art at the Academie Des Beaux Arts where he was also awarded a prize medal for figure drawing. After a year he went to England working as an artist doing illustrations for magazines and also gaining commissions to do portraits amongst the English gentry. He soon bought a Boehm flute and taught himself to play and read music, having not had any prior formal music education. Still actively painting, he had works submitted in Paris and later in London at the Royal Academy. In 1913 Harcourt returned to Australia and it is about this time that he started making his first flute. This idea was initially stimulated after he had heard that Dame Nellie Melba had presented a set of flutes to the Melbourne Conservatorium at the pitch being used in England and the USA, A = 440 Hz. Harcourt’s own Boehm system flute that he had bought in England was at high pitch, and, unable to afford a differently pitched instrument with A = 440, he decided to make his own. As a keen player this also enabled him to play in a local orchestra.

Because proper flute wood was difficult to get, Harcourt made this first instruments from ebonite tubing, a hard vulcanized rubber which Harcourt referred to as Vulcanite. He repaired a lathe and made special tools for the purpose. In his autobiographical papers he states; “

…as each problem cropped up I designed and made a tool to solve it. I was aided by being a sound mechanic and greatly helped by being a good draughtsman.” (p.146).

Over the coming years Harcourt experimented with different materials using ebonite, cocus or granadilla wood and metal in his instruments. He also made all his own silver key work even down to the screws. His formula for making flutes was simple, (according to him!);

“All that is necessary is to posess [sic.] a knowledge of acoustics, a delicate sense of intonation, a complete grasp of all mechanical actions, some experience in forging and hard soldering silver, and that capacity for fashioning things in metal to fine limits up to about one thousandth of an inch”. (p.148).

In 1923 he again travelled to Europe and returned to Australia in 1928. In later life he found it more and more difficult to make a living from art although his work was exhibited a number of times. About 1930 he moved to the Victorian town of Heidelberg just outside Melbourne, home of a school of famous Australian artists. He experienced great hardships during the Depression and for many years afterwards but managed to survive doing some painting restoration, flute teaching and flute repair work both privately and for music businesses such as AP Sykes. Leslie Barklamb was amongst his clients.

Harcourt continued making flutes, both concert and student instruments, for many years only making approximately a dozen instruments including an alto flute and a piccolo. Although he appears to have considered selling them, most don’t seem to have been sold and the bulk of these are now in the Powerhouse Museum’s collection. Unfortunately it is difficult to date the instruments with great accuracy, although he claimed that his earliest flutes were made of ebonite.

The instruments show an incredibly competent maker at work, highly proficient at both wood turning and metalworking. Although his notes reveal details of how he made his flutes, what is less clear is how he actually learned his flute making skills, which seem to be largely self taught. It is apparent from the instruments that Harcourt knew how to turn wood on a lathe and make a bore, as well as having the silver smithing skills needed to make all the key work on his instruments. The instruments are also not only of the one material, either all wood or all metal, but show experimentation with composite materials such as wood or metal head joints and wooden lip plates on metal tubes.

An early ebonite flute by Clewin Harcourt (2005/173/1 courtesy Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Photo: Marinco Kojdanovski)

A concert flute by Clewin Harcourt (2005/173/4 courtesy Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Photo: Marinco Kojdanovski)

Detail of the concert flute showing the maker’s plate with Harcourt’s initials. Probably originally from a gold watch. (2005/173/4 courtesy Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Photo: Marinco Kojdanovski)

Constantly thinking up new ideas and improvements in a range of topics and applications, Harcourt incorporated several in his flute work. These included a wooden covering around the head joint and varying the way the embouchure hole was shaped and angled, using thicker gauged metal for silver head joints, the use of animal kidney skins for key pads and improvements to the ways flute keys were activated.

As part of this innovative work, Harcourt’s enquiries lead him to contact the noted scientist and flute collector Professor Dayton C. Miller at the Physics Department of the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, USA.From 1926 Harcourt and Miller corresponded about Harcourt’s instruments and flute construction in general, as well as Miller’s own growing collection and various interesting asides. In one letter whilst in England Miller comments;

“When we were in London two years ago we had the pleasure of being entertained at tea at the beautiful London home of Mr and Mrs Amadio (Mme Florence Austral). I had hoped we might meet them again this time. Their Australian friends will surely enjoy the music of these wonderful artists. Mr Amadio is in my opinion the finest flutist now before the public.” (Letter, DC Miller to C Harcourt, London, 4/8/1935).

Harcourt did not make flutes en masse. Each instrument was crafted with what appears to be a specific purpose in mind whether it was to make a fine playing instrument, an experiment to test certain ideas and principles, or to produce a practical instrument adapted for the smaller hands of young students. Many of the flutes he made were housed in beautifully finished handmade boxes usually in Australian timbers such as fiddleback. The wooden cleaning rods in them were also hand made and often incorporated a small adjustment tool or screwdriver imbedded in the end of the cleaning rod.

Clewin Harcourt died in1965 at the age of 94. Without any immediate family or contact with relatives, his memory and legacy survived through the efforts of one family, Harold and Margaret Wilson and their children Jenny, Nicky and John. They lived near Harcourt in Heidelberg and were some of the few people he allowed into his life. Becoming almost a member of their family, the children learned valuable skills – not only flute playing but also drawing and silver smithing. In later years the family also looked after the aging artist. It is through their benevolence and generosity that Harcourt’s story has been preserved and artefacts and paintings belonging to him have survived in several cultural institutions. Harcourt’s papers and other documents are now held in the collection of the Australian National Library, Canberra.

The following instruments made by Clewin Harcourt were donated to the Powerhouse Museum by family friend and flute student of Harcourt, Nicola Coles (nee Wilson) in memory of Clewin Harcourt (1870–1965) in 2005;

2005/173/1 Concert flute with case and accessories, Boehm system, ebonite body, silver key work, made by Clewin Harcourt, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, [1913–1960]

2005/173/2 Concert flute with case and accessories, Boehm system, wooden [Grenadilla] body, silver key work, silver maker’s plate, Clewin Harcourt, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, [1913–1960]

2005/173/3 Concert flute with case and cleaning rod, Boehm system, wooden [Grenadilla] body, silver key work, silver maker’s plate, Clewin Harcourt, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, [1917]

2005/173/4 Concert flute with case and cleaning rod, Boehm system, wooden [Grenadilla] body, silver key work, gold maker’s plate, made by Clewin Harcourt, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, [1913–1960]

2005/173/5 Concert flute with case and cleaning rod, Boehm system, wooden head joint with rest of body silver, silver key work, made by Clewin Harcourt, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, [1913–1960]

2005/173/6 Concert flute with case and cleaning rod, Boehm system, silver body with wooden lip plate encircling tube, silver key work, made by Clewin Harcourt, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, [1913–1960] 2005/173/7 Student flute with case, Boehm system, brass head joint with lip plate and rest of body in wood, short foot joint, metal [brass] key work, made by Clewin Harcourt, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, [1940–1960]

2005/173/8 Student flute with case, Boehm system, brass and wood head joint with rest of body in wood, long foot joint, metal [silver] key work, made by Clewin Harcourt, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, [1940–1960]

2005/173/9 Piccolo, Boehm system, wooden [Grenadilla] body, nickel silver key work, Clewin Harcourt, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, [1913–1960]

Michael Lea is Curator of Music and Musical Instruments at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia and is a member of the International Committee of Musical Instrument Museums and Collections (CIMCIM). He is currently working on several research projects including a collaboration with the University of New South Wales Physics Department involving historic & contemporary flutes. www.powerhousemuseum.com

Danielle Eden is a graduate of the University of London, Royal Academy of Music and the Sydney conservatorium and hosts respectively a doctorate, masters and performance degrees. She has presented numerous papers on the history of the piccolo and flute development in the UK, Australia and US. In 2002 she was made an associate of the Royal Academy of Music. She is currently on the staff of the University of Sydney specialising in creative arts. www.powerhousemuseum.com