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The Adam Carse Collection contains around 350 Western wind instruments and charts the history of their development from the 18th to the 20th century. Adam Carse (1878-1958) was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music and was also active as a composer, author and music historian.
The collection provided a focus for a number of Carse's historical studies. His authoritative Musical Wind Instruments (London 1939) details the technical developments of wind instruments through the ages and is illustrated exclusively with examples from the collection. He was also interested in the social history of music making, and his volume 'The Orchestra from Beethoven to Berlioz' (Cambridge 1948) traces the careers of many prominent players and conductors in the first half of the 19th century. This interest in performers influenced Carse's collecting activities, and many of the instruments in the collection were acquired because of their links to significant players from the past.
Having retired from his teaching position in 1940, Carse donated his entire collection to the Horniman Museum in 1947. The bequest was made in memory of his son Edward, who was killed in the last days of the war. The conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent was guest of honour at an opening ceremony in the same year, and the collection has been on public display ever since.
Documents relating to the history of the instruments also form part of the collection, and the Horniman Museum Library is now home to the Adam Carse Archive. This includes information about the performers for whom many of the instruments were made as well as the source materials for Carse's books on the history of the orchestra.
Carse maintained contact with his collection after its move to the Horniman Museum and in 1951 published a full descriptive catalogue of the instruments. In the 1970s, further documentation work was carried out by the wind instrument specialist Mr. E.A.K. Ridley. Most of the information about the Adam Carse Collection in this online catalogue derives from the records that Ridley produced based on Carse's earlier publication. These descriptions provide comprehensive information about measurements, materials and key systems. However, inscriptions were not recorded in the same detail, and often only the maker's name and location have been transcribed. Although a few black and white photographs from the time of Ridley's research appear in the online catalogue, most instruments are illustrated with a more recent colour image. In many cases, the new photograph that appears with an instrument record has been taken specifically for the online catalogue project.
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