Backers (Becker)

Biography

Backers (Becker) was one of the so-called '12 apostles'—German piano makers, nearly all pupils of Silbermann—who emigrated to London around 1760 and became pioneers of the English piano industry, later appearing in the London city directory as a pianoforte maker. From Spillane (1890): Backers, properly a Dutchman, was one of the 'twelve apostles' -- a group of twelve German workmen whose arrival in London around 1760 marked a significant epoch in English pianoforte manufacture. Backers became closely associated with the English grand piano and is credited as the inventor of the English grand action, a mechanism handed down, with certain alterations, into later use; Spillane notes that the Broadwoods of London still used it, in improved form, at the time of writing.

Highlights

• One of the '12 apostles' who emigrated from Silbermann's Saxony workshops to London around 1760
• One of the 'twelve apostles,' German workmen who settled in London around 1760
• Invented the English grand action, still used (in improved form) by the Broadwoods
• Properly a Dutchman, closely associated with the English grand piano

Sources

Alfred Dolge, Pianos and Their Makers, Vol. I (1911).

Daniel Spillane, History of the American Pianoforte (1890), p. 20.

Public domain.