Thomas Key

Thomas Key was a wind instrument maker active in London around 1800 and for much of the first half of the nineteenth century. Little is known of his early years, and the exact location where he first established his workshop is not known with certainty. His principal activity was the manufacture and sale of instruments, although around 1815 he also published a set of six waltzes for military band, transcribed for piano by James Salmon.

His career began in partnership with John Cramer, with whom he traded in Pall Mall under the name Cramer & Key between 1804 and 1808. After that association was dissolved, he continued to work on his own under his own name until 1813, after which he settled in Charing Cross, where he is believed to have remained for the rest of his life. Following his death, his son Frederick took over the running of the firm. In 1854 the business joined with George Rudall and was renamed Key, Rudall & Co.; shortly afterwards the names of J. M. Rose, a flute maker from Edinburgh, and Richard Carte, who had entered the business in 1850, were added. Key's name disappeared from the firm's title in 1858, although the reason is unknown.

His legacy survives chiefly in his instruments. Numerous pieces by him are preserved, ranging from the four large woodwind instruments to horns, trumpets and serpents, as well as unusual examples such as the basso hibernicon. His clarinets are the most celebrated: Luke located 33 examples, made of boxwood with ivory rings and fitted with between six and thirteen brass keys, which set a benchmark for quality among English instruments of the first half of the nineteenth century. His bassoons, which date from a later period, are notable for their sweet tone in the tenor register and for their use of additional keys and trill mechanisms. Finally, his horns are remarkably ingenious: some examples, fitted with two Stölzel valves and several sets of crook tubes, cover a very wide range of pitches.