Frank Donald Napier

Frank Donald Napier (1885–1969) was an English bow maker associated with W. E. Hill & Sons during one of the firm’s most important periods of bow production. He trained in the Hill workshop and became an accomplished maker of bows bearing the firm’s stamp rather than his own name.

Napier is particularly associated with the development and manufacture of the Hill workshop’s student ...Read More bows, including models stamped “HILL” and “H. & S.” His better bows, however, were made to the high standards expected of the Hill firm and survive in both silver- and gold-mounted examples. As was customary in the workshop, individual makers were generally identified through internal marks rather than external signatures, and Napier’s work is therefore usually encountered under the W. E. Hill & Sons name.

His bows are typically well controlled and functional in conception, reflecting the disciplined house style established at Hills. Surviving examples include both round and octagonal sticks and a range of mountings, from straightforward silver fittings to elaborate gold and tortoiseshell examples.

Napier left W. E. Hill & Sons after the First World War, around 1918, and subsequently pursued a career as a civil-service engineer. His comparatively brief professional career as a bow maker has made his work less numerous than that of some of the longer-serving Hill craftsmen, but his bows form an identifiable and respected part of the firm's early 20th-century production. Read Less

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