From Lane End and Poverty to London and Prosperity
Robert Bansall was the illegitimate son of Tamah Bansall born in 1851; it is probable that he was born in the Framework Knitters cottages at Lane End, at the bottom of Church Hill where his grandmother shared her home and knitting frames with 3 children and 5 Grandchildren including Robert. Life as a framework knitter in the 18th and 19th centuries was tough. To make ends meet, the whole family would have been employed in the manufacture of stockings.
When his mother married Joseph Allen in 1858, the family moved to Newton Green and built a substantial business in Framework Knitting, employing 11 men and 4 women. They also had a Grocer’s shop. Robert took on the surname Allen.
After marrying Amelia Turner at North Wingfield, Robert moved to Derby and then to London, where the 1891 census describes him as a Coal Merchant. But he appears to have had a side line. In the late 1800s there was increasing demand from the middle classes for pianos at home, and in 1883 Robert moved into manufacturing pianos in the Hackney area of London. And so the Bansall & Sons Piano Company became an important part of the supply of Upright and Baby Grand Pianos, labelled for wholesalers own brands with a small number under the Bansall name.
The business appears to have grown to a peak in the 1920s and slowly contracted with the decreasing demand for pianos and the last information obtained is in 1959 for Bansall and Sons Piano Manufacturers with an office in London and a factory in Leeds. Nothing is known after that date.
Robert and Amelia had 8 children whose children in turn became known by the surname Bansall-Allen, and a dynasty was born. Robert’s children themselves were involved in the piano business almost from it’s inception and continued the business after Robert’s death in 1934.
In 1941 a grandson of Robert and Amelia, Robert William Bansell-Allen returned to these parts to become vicar at Heath for 10 years.
Pianos with the Bansall and Sons name occasionally appear for sale on Ebay and other platforms, so look out for one and you could have a link to the history of Blackwell’s “Captain of Industry and Music”.
Tony Mellors Oct 2021