W. S. B. Woolhouse

I took the quote from Woolhouse from the book: "Piano Tuning"
by J. Cree Fischer. The book was originally published in 1907.
I have the Dover edition of 1975. The author, Fischer, introduces
the quote from Woolhouse as follows (p. 144 of the Dover edition):

"That the equal temperament is the only practical temperament,
is confidently affirmed by Mr. W. S. B. Woolhouse, an eminent
authority on musical mathematics, who says:- 'It is very misleading
to suppose that the necessity of temperament applies only to
instruments which have fixed tones... - rest of longish quote - '

Apart from the quotation in Fischer, I know nothing about
W. S. B. Woolhouse excepting that he lived in the 19th century and
that he is mentioned in Ellis' translation of Helmholtz in connection
with a 19 tone equal temperament. In posting the quote to the tuning
list, I assumed Mr. Fischer's reliability in conveying Mr. Woolhouse's
point of view. Is it possible that Mr. Woolhouse had done studies on
19 tone equal temperament, but nevertheless emphatically advocated
the more usual 12 equal temperament for practical musical
performance?

Dave Hill La Mesa, CA

Dave Hill wrote,

>Is it possible that Mr. Woolhouse had done studies on
>19 tone equal temperament, but nevertheless emphatically advocated
>the more usual 12 equal temperament for practical musical
>performance?

Quite possible, given what composers of his time were trying to do (by the
19th century, most composers thought of G# and Ab, etc., as entirely
interchageable and used such enharmonic equivalency to modulate around
fractions or the entirety of the circle of fifths). However, his advocacy of
19-tone equal tempermant, though it would not allow such practices, clearly
had a very "practical" component, since the "optimal" meantone he derived
(from 16th-18th century musical considerations) was essentially 50-tone
equal temperament, and the only possible reason for suggesting 19 instead of
50 would be a practical one of actually getting all those notes onto
instruments.