Byfield, John (i)

Dates Active in Dublin: 

1728–1733, 1750–1751

Business Type: 
Musical instrument maker: organ
Address(es): 

[London - working in Dublin]

Details: 

Son-in-law of Renatus Harris.

Born in London, he started in partnership with his brother-in-law John Harris in 1725. The business, known as Harris and Byfield, operated until Harris retired in 1740. After that date Byfield continued, probably assisted by his son, John Byfield (ii).

His last work was the new organ for Christ Church Cathedral - he died in Wolverhampton on the return journey to England.

Select Product/Work List: 

Built

  • Organ: Christ Church Cathedral, 1752 (Dublin Journal 23–27 June 1752, cited in Boydell, Calendar) [moved to St Nicholas' Church, Cork in 1857 (Bumpus)]
  • Organ: Great Music Hall, Fishamble Street, 1742–43 (Boydell, Calendar)
  • Organ (made for the Philharmonic Society): sold to the Charitable Musical Society for the Support of Incurables in 1748 (Dublin Journal, 23 August 1748, cited in Boydell, 'Music, 1700–1850')

    • Repaired and Improved

  • Organ: Christ Church Cathedral, 1728–33
  • Organ: St Michan's Church, 1728–29 [added stops], 1732 [mended the organ] (Boydell, St Michan's)
  • Organ: St Patrick's Cathedral, 1728–1733 [added stops, repaired and tuned] (Grindle) ; [Willis is said to have incorporated some of Byfield's diapasons in his new organ build in 1902] (Thornsby)
    • See Also: 

    Byfield, John (ii)
    Harris, Renatus
    Telford & Telford
    Willis, Henry

    Source(s): 

    'Provincial Organs', in Dictionary of Organs and Organists, ed. by Frederick W. Thornsby, 2nd edn. (London: Geo. Aug. Mate & Son, 1921), pp. 165–285 (p. 202)

    Bumpus, John S., 'Irish Church Composers and the Irish Cathedrals: Part II', Proceedings of the Musical Association, 26 (1899–1900), 115–59 (p. 153)

    Gillingham, Michael and Nicholas Plumley, 'Byfield', in The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, ed. by Stanley Sadie, 3 vols (London: Macmillan Press Limited, 1984), I, p. 289

    Boydell, Brian, 'Music, 1700–1850', in Eighteenth-Century Ireland 1691–1800, ed. by T.W. Moody and W.E. Vaughan, A New History of Ireland, IV (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 568–627 (p. 581)

    Boydell, Brian, A Dublin Musical Calendar 1700–1760 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1988), pp. 168, 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), p. 134

    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 (pp. 88–89)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Last Update: 21-03-2018