Dating lachenal concertinas

In the English Folk Revival of the 1960s, though the English concertina had been more an art music instrument, it became popular with British folk musicians.

Karl Dallas has suggested that the mere presence of 'English' in the name attracted some of the revival's demographic; Alf Edwards was a regular accompanist to both A L Lloyd and Ewan Mac Coll, and taught the instrument to Peggy Seeger.

A number of experts in different subject areas, based in Europe and the US, are already working on their own research projects associated with the history, development and music of the instrument.

It is a fully chromatic instrument, having buttons in a rectangular arrangement of four staggered rows; its buttons are unisonoric, producing the same note on both the push and pull of the bellows.Today the Museum’s community of stakeholders is a global one, and the collection numbers over 8,000 examples of sound-producing instruments from all over the world.The Horniman is one of the few UK museums that collects instruments of popular music.In 1996, the Museum acquired a large collection of concertinas, a bellows-blown free reed instrument that was the invention of another illustrious Victorian.Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) was a physicist best known for his work on the electric telegraph, and as an inventor of scientific instruments.