Antonín Dvořák - an apprentice butcher? "Dvořák in a bloody apron..."

Soon after I was posted to Czechoslovakia as Cultural Attaché, in April 1986, I wrote my first Prague poem, "First Impressions of Prague". I'd read many times that Antonín Dvořák had been trained as an apprentice butcher. I learned only yesterday that this is not true, although his father was an innkeeper and butcher. Young Antonín might well have worn a bloody apron on occasion, so the last line of the poem is not inaccurate (see biographical details here - http://www.antonin-dvorak.cz/en/life -
"All of Antonín’s predecessors were butchers or innkeepers, thus it was automatically assumed that the first-born child would inherit the business...during his childhood, Dvořák was still expected to help his father with the family business and prepare to take it over one day. His apprenticeship involved visits to local markets in the neighbourhood, where father and son would select livestock...Dvořák never did learn the butcher’s trade").

For the composer's letters:

https://archive.org/stream/antonindvoraklet001860mbp/antonindvoraklet001860mbp_djvu.txt

Apparently he was never an apprentice butcher in Zlonice u Slaného. I learnt this from an informative BBC podcast by Donald Macleod - Composer of the Week, BBC Sounds

Below is a translation of the allegedly forged certificate of attendance at butchery school (from Otakar Šourek's A.D., Letters and Reminiscences).

CERTIFICATE OF APPRENTICESHIP ISSUED BY THE BUTCHER'S GUILD IN ZLONICE

We, the undersigned office-holders of the honourable Town Guild of Butchers, do by these presents bear witness and confirm that Antonín Dvorak of Nelahozeves, born on the 8th September 1841, of Roman Catholic denomination, was bound as an apprentice in the year 1854, on the fifth of the month of November, at the opening of the Guild Fund, to the butcher's trade, the apprenticeship to run from the 1st November for two years. In as far as the aforesaid Antonius Dvorak conducted himself during the specified period of the two years of his apprenticeship honestly, faithfully and industriously, and having learned, as is testified to by his Master, Jan Roubal, the trade of butcher well and properly, he was presented on the self-same 1st of November 1856 to the assembled gathering under the chairmanship of the P. T. superintendant of this Guild and declared in due order to have served his apprenticeship.

Having made out for the above-named Antonius Dvorak this CERTIFICATE OF APPRENTICESHIP entitling him to carry on the trade of butcher, we beg that he should be recognized as a properly taught butcher's, journeyman and everywhere received with courtesy. In witness whereof this certificate of apprenticeship is awarded him by the undersigned and under the Guild Seal Ordinary.

On the 2nd November 1856.

Jan Roubal Jan Warsky, Frantz Ekert,

Josef Bjlej,

Certified Master,

Jan Bity

Building Master and Teacher.

In the years 1854-1856, in the little town of Zlonice by Slaný in Bohemia, Dvorak  learned the trade of butcher and was, at the same time, a pupil of the organist Antonin Liehmann. There he continued with his violin lessons and acquired his first knowledge of piano and organ. He then spent the school-year 1856-57 in Česká Kamenice, where he improved his German and went on with his musical training.

RECOLLECTIONS OF DVORAK'S YOUTH

Tonicek (Tony) had scarcely learned to walk when he was given the apron and hatchet that are the insignia of the butcher's trade... But it was mainly due to the influence of his teacher, Liehmann, that Uncle was induced to release him from following the family calling and to give him to music. And so it was with respect and gratitude that the teacher Liehmann was remembered and often called to mind in our family. When Antonin showed little promise of taking to the butchery business, Uncle at last resolved to act and took the boy to Prague.

František Dvořák, Antonin's father

From a letter to his father, from England:

In some of the papers there was also mention made of you, that I come of poor parents and that my father was a butcher and innkeeper in Nelahozeves and did everything to give his son a proper educatian, Honour be to you for that! When I get back to Prague I shall visit you at Kladno. Till then God keep you. With a loving embrace.

Later impressions of Prague - photos taken in my bugged, closely observed office (located above the Supraphon studio and shop) the British Kulturní oddělení, Jungmannova ulice; Britské velvyslanectví v Praze, 1986-1989):

The Butcher Boy - Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem