This chapter sets the scene for readers of the book by defining British violin culture and placing it in historical perspective. It traces the culture’s arc in time by tackling questions of numerical extent, patterns of activity, and related historiographical issues. It also discusses the societal positioning of string players c. 1870 and outlines the socioeconomic factors that triggered the initial surge in learning and playing, including the new availability of cheap instruments and crumbling assumptions about violin playing being out of bounds to women and girls. It ends by tracking Victorian values and activities that persisted from the 1870s into the 1920s – including socioeconomic aspiration, self-betterment, and beliefs in classical music as a meaningful leisure pursuit – to underline the coherence of the book’s periodization. The chapter counters assumptions that the popularity of violin playing was limited to the 1880s and 1890s and further argues that violin culture’s class composition resists generalization.