About the Bate

About the Bate

The Bate Collection of Musical Instruments, in the Faculty of Music at Oxford University, is the most comprehensive collection in Britain of European woodwind, brass and percussion.

The Bate Collection consists of the original Philip Bate Gift of European Orchestral Woodwind Instruments, plus many other instruments given and lent by Philip Bate throughout his life; the Reginald Morley-Pegge Memorial Collection of Horns and other Brass and Woodwind Instruments; the Anthony Baines Collection; the Edgar Hunt Collection of Recorders and other instruments; the Jean Henry Collection, the Taphouse Keyboard Loans; the Roger Warner Keyboard Collection; the Michael Thomas Keyboard Collection; a number of instruments from the Jeremy Montagu Collection; the tools and other bow-making equipment from William Retford's workshop, as well as a small collection of Bows formed in his memory, the Wally Horwood Collection of books and recordings, and a great many other instruments acquired by purchase, and gift.

There are on display more than a thousand instruments, by all the most important English, French and German makers, which show the musical and mechanical development of all wind and percussion instruments from the Renaissance and the Baroque to modern times.