Weber, Ferdinand

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Dates Active in Dublin: 

[1739?] 1749–1784

Address(es): 

Werburgh Street, 1739–49
Marlborough Street, 1749–55
71 Marlborough Street, 1776–84

Details: 

Also known as Ferdinand Webber.

Born in Saxony.

Weber succeeded Peter Gunan as organ tuner and repairer of the Trinity College Chapel organ from 1759 until his death in 1784 (Boydell, 'The Organ of Trinity College Chapel, Dublin').

In the Dublin Directories (1762–84) Weber is listed as a 'harpsichord maker'.

His account books (edited by W.H. Grattan Flood) list repairs, new instruments, etc. supplied to a wide variety of clients; they also indicate that a new harpsichord cost from £22-15-0 to £34-2-6 in 1773 and a new Forte Piano cost £14-15-9 in 1775.

Apprentices: John Christian Wagner? ['for several Years transacted Business for his Uncle Mr. Ferdinand Webber' (Dublin Journal)] and Robert Woffington? (Boydell, Card Index)

Succeeded in business by his widow Rachel and son Thomas Ferdinand in 1784.

[Details differ according to sources: the Dublin Directories give 'Marlborough St' from 1749 to 1775 and 71 Marlborough Street from 1776 to 1784. Boydell (Calendar) gives 71 Marlborough Street address from 1749 to 1784. Flood gives the Werburgh Street address from 1739 to 1783 but this has not been substantiated. Otherwise Boydell ('The Organ of Trinity College Chapel, Dublin') states that a payment on 23 June 1749 for repairs to the organ of Trinity College chapel is the earliest recorded evidence for Weber's work in Dublin. The Dublin Builder states that Weber resided in Dublin during the 'commencement of the present [nineteenth] century'. Note: Grindle states that Weber maintained the organ of St Fin Barre's after 1739 but Caulfield states he carried out the work from 1763 to 1772.]

Select Product/Work List: 

Built

  • Organ: Tuam Cathedral, 1749 (Dublin Journal, 10–14 October 1749, cited in Boydell, Calendar)
  • Harpsichord (made for Thomas Rosengrave), 1752 (Flood, 'Harpsichord and Pianoforte Makers')
  • Harpsichord (made for Dean Delaney) c. 1752 (Flood, 'Harpsichord and Pianoforte Makers')
  • Unspecified instrument (made for the Earl of Grandison), after c. 1752 (Flood, 'Harpsichord and Pianoforte Makers')
  • Unspecified instrument (made for Lord Mornington), after c. 1752 (Flood, 'Harpsichord and Pianoforte Makers')
  • Organ: Christ Church Cork, 1761 (Boydell, Calendar)
  • Harpsichord (made for Henry Prittie, later Baron Dunnally), 1764: private collection (De Valera, 'Two Eighteenth-century Musical Instrument Makers')
  • Organ: St Thomas' Church, Dublin, c. 1767 (Dublin Builder; De Valera, 'Two Eighteenth-century Musical Instrument Makers')
  • Organ: St Catherine's Church, Dublin, c. 1767 (De Valera, 'Two Eighteenth-century Musical Instrument Makers')
  • Harpsichord, 1768/9: National Museum of Ireland [formerly in the Earl of Normanton, Archbishop of Dublin collection] (Flood, 'Harpsichord and Pianoforte Makers')
  • Organ: St Werburgh's Church (Dublin Builder; De Valera, 'Two Eighteenth-century Musical Instrument Makers')
  • Square piano (made for Sarah Curran) (De Valera, 'Sarah Curran's Musical Interests')
  • Piano, 1774 [exhibited at the Cork Exhibition, 1902] (Flood, 'Harpsichord and Pianoforte Makers')
  • Spinet: National Museum of Ireland (Gogan)
  • Harpsichord: National Museum of Ireland (Gogan)
  • Maintained and Repaired

  • Organ: St Nicholas' Church, Galway, 1749 (Dublin Journal, 10–14 October 1749, cited in Boydell, Calendar)
  • Organ: Trinity College Chapel, 1749, 1759–84 (Boydell, 'The Organ of Trinity College Chapel, Dublin')
  • Organ: Christ Church Cathedral, 1766–1781 (De Valera, 'Two Eighteenth-Century Musical Instrument Makers')
  • Organ: St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, 1767–72 (Caulfield)
  • Organ: St Patrick's Cathedal, Dublin, 1776 (Chapter Acts, 24 May 1776, cited in Boydell, Card Index)
  • Added Stops/Bellows

  • Organ: St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, added stops: 1763 and bellows: 1767 (Caulfield)
  • Organ: Trinity College Dublin?, added stops: 1760
  • Tuned

  • Organ: Trinity College Chapel, 1759–84 (Boydell, 'The Organ of Trinity College Chapel, Dublin')
  • Organ: St Colman's Cathedral Cloyne, 1766, 1768, 1771, 1774 (Grindle)
  • Organ: Kilkenny Cathedral (Boydell, Card Index)
  • Organ: Rathfarnham Castle (Boydell Card Index)
  • Organ: St Ann's Church, Dublin (Flood, 'The Account Book of a Dublin Harpsichord Maker')
  • Organ: St Paul's Church, Dublin (Flood, 'The Account Book of a Dublin Harpsichord Maker')
  • Organ: Rotunda (Flood, 'The Account Book of a Dublin Harpsichord Maker')
  • Source(s): 

    Dublin Directories

    Dublin Journal, 5–9 November 1765, p. 4

    Dublin Builder, 1 April 1860, p. 233

    Caulfield, Richard, Annals of St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork (Cork: Purcell & Company, 1871), pp. 76, 78–79

    Flood, W.H. Grattan, 'Dublin Harpsichord and Pianoforte Makers of the Eighteenth Century', The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 5th ser., 39.2 (1909), 137–45 (pp. 139–44)

    Flood, W.H. Grattan, 'Irish Organ-Builders from the Eighth to the Close of the Eighteenth Century', The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 5th ser., 40.3 (30 September 1910), 229–34 (p. 233)

    Flood, W.H. Grattan, ‘The Account Book of a Dublin Harpsichord Maker, Ferdinand Weber’, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 6th ser., 4.4 (31 December 1914), 338–47

    Gogan, L.S., 'Musical Instrument Collections in the National Museum of Ireland', in Music in Ireland: a Symposium, ed. by Aloys Fleischmann (Cork: Cork University Press, 1952), pp. 299–307 (p. 304)

    Teahan, John, 'A List of Irish Instrument Makers', The Galpin Society Journal, 16 (May 1963), 28–32 (p. 32)

    Hogan, Ita Margaret, Anglo-Irish Music 1780–1830 (Cork: Cork University Press, 1966), p. 107

    Doyle, Paul, ‘18th Century Musical Instruments in the National Museum Dublin, with notes on an English Guitar 1764 by Gibson of Dublin’, FOMRHI Quarterly, 13 (October 1978), 21-24 (p. 21)

    De Valera, Terry, 'Two Eighteenth-Century Musical Instrument Makers', Dublin Historical Record, 36.4 (September 1983), 122–31 (pp. 122–25)

    De Valera, Terry, 'Sarah Curran's Musical Interests', Dublin Historical Record, 38.1 (1984), 14–21 (p. 15)

    Boydell, Brian, A Dublin Musical Calendar 1700–1760 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1988), pp. 130, 260

    Grindle, W.H., Irish Cathedral Music: a History of Music at the Cathedrals of the Church of Ireland (Belfast: The Institute of Irish Studies, The Queen's University of Belfast, 1989), pp. 53, 143, 154, 157

    Boydell, Barra, 'John Baptiste Cuvillie, Ferdinand Weber, and the Organ of Trinity College Chapel, Dublin', The Organ, 72.283 (1992), 15–27 (pp. 22–23)

    Boydell, Barra, 'St Michan's Church, Dublin: the Installation of the Organ in 1725 and the Duties of the Organist', Journal of the British Institute of Organ Studies, 19 (1995), 74–96 (p. 89)

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Hammond’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Heron, Thomas’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Hollister, William (1)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Southwell family 1 (1)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Southwell family 1 (2)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Southwell family 2 (2)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Wagner, John Christian’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Webber, Ferdinand (1)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Webber, Ferdinand (2)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Webber, Ferdinand (3)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Webber, Ferdinand (4)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Weber, F. & Hammond, John (1)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Woffington, Robert (1)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Boydell, Brian, ‘Woffington, Robert (2)’, Dublin Music Trade Card Index <http://dublinmusictrade.ie/card-index>

    Last Update: 17-02-2017