WW 1Henry Keats & Sons 1916 , broad arrow marked bugle from the British army.

Broad arrow 1916 marked bugle, made by Henry Keats & sons for the British Army.

Around 1825 Samuel Keats began to make instruments with his son in London. In 1866 they moved to Matthias road. This is also the adress indicated on this particular bugle. They made cornets, drums, military items, horns, trumpets & bugles. At around 1894 they made somewhere between 2 and 3 thousand army bugles annually !
At around 1950 the production ended.

This example blows not to difficult and has a really big bore. The diameter of the hole of the mouthpiece is 4,5 millimeter, compared to the 3,5 millimeter of for example the French bugles by Couesnon in use with the French army. This makes for a completely different experience when you blow your lungs out in these horns. :) The bigger hole seems like an advantage to me. You can get rid of enough air to really inhale when the moment arrives you' re running out of oxygen and are about to turn blue. With the French bugles I have the problem of not getting rid of enough air to be able to inhale a substantial amount to keep my lungs and brains supplied. ( so I do turn blue 😂 ) Probably there' s still something essential missing in my breath technique that I still have to figure out and fix :) .
The bugle produces a very open loud sound. The mouthpiece shaft of the British ones is also typically shorter than their French counterparts by about 1 cm. I' m under the impression that this contributes to the fact that the french mouthpieces get stuck more easily when oxydated and are harder to extract.

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Deze klaroen is in 1916 gemaakt door Keats & Sons voor het Engels leger. Ze draagt ook het typische broad arrow merkteken. Ze heeft een grotere boring dan de toenmalige Qouesnon klaroenen in dienst bij het franse leger. Ze heeft een open klank en produceert een zeer substantieel geluidsvolume. :)

Keats & Sons produceerden instrumenten tussen 1825 en 1950. Ze waren gevestigd in Londen. Rond 1894 produceerden ze tussen de 2 à 3000 militaire klaroenen per jaar ! De produktie stopte in 1950.