A CERTAIN IMPROVEMENT IN SMALL, OR WHAT ARE COMMONLY CALLED SQUARE PIANOFORTES
Year: 1825

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, JAMES
SHUDI BROADWOOD, of Great Pulteney Street, Golden Square, in the Parish
of Saint James, in the County of Middlesex, Pianoforte Maker, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Fourth, by His
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Sixth day of October, in the sixth year of His reign, did,
for Himself, His heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
James Shudi Broadwood, His especial licence that I, the said James
Shudi Broadwood, my executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others
as I, the said James Shudi Broadwood, my executors, administrators, and
assigns, should at any time agree with, and no others, from time to time
and at all times thereafter during the term of years therein expressed, should
and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and
the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also within all His Majesty's Colonies
and Plantations abroad, my Invention of "A CERTAIN IMPROVEMENT IN SMALL,
OR WHAT ARE COMMONLY CALLED SQUARE PIANOFORTES;" in which said Letters
Patent thero is contained a proviso, obliging me, the said James Shudi
Broadwood, by an instrument in writing under my hand and seal, particularly
to describe and ascertain the nature of my said Invention, and in what
manner the same is to be performed, and to cause the same to be inrolled
in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next
aud immediately after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in and
and by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large
appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
James Shudi Broadwood, do hereby declare that the nature of my said
Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, is described
and ascertained as follows (that is to say):-
The improvement consists in the effectual prevention of the "double blow,"
or rebound of the hammer to the string, to which the small or square piano-
forte bath hitherto been subject, which rebound partially checks the vibration
of the string produced by the first blow of the hammer, and is cause of
unpleasent jarrings when the key or keys are struck with any degree of force.
To accomplish this, a check wire (see Letter A in the annexed Drawing),
cloathed and guarded, is fixed into the key at B and to the hammer beneath
the head thereof, at C, a piece of wood called a stay D is attached, which, on
the hammer striking the string and falling, is caught by the forward movement
of the check, and held till released by the fall of the key. The annexed
Drawing will make this plain to any person conversant with the mechanism of
the square pianoforte. The check may be made of wire, metal, whalebone,
wood, or leather. The stay may be made of wood, cork, leather, cloth,
whalebone, wire, metal, or paper.
I do not claim the invention of the check, it having been long used in the
grand pianoforte, as well as in other stringed instruments; but I claim "the
Invention of the stay, and of the mode of applying the check to the hammers
of the square or small pianoforte."
In witness whereof, I, the said James Shudi Broadwood, have hereunto
set my hand and seal, the Thirteenth day of March, in the year of
our Lord One thousand eight hundred and twenty-six.
Inrolled the same Thirteenth day of March, in the year above written.