THE WORDSWORTH AND MASKELL PIPE ORGAN 1883
THE ORGAN
BUILDERS
Wordsworth
and Maskell
The firm was established in 1866 at Leeds in the north of England. Wordsworth had a large connection in the counties of Lancashire (c. 60 organs), Lincolnshire (c. 23 organs) and Yorkshire (c. 80 organs); in Leeds alone they built over fifty new organs as well as rebuilding fifteen others.” The largest instrument they built was a four manual organ in Epping (England) Parish Church in 1895. Their instruments were sent to the many colonies of the Empire.
THE ORGAN
ASSEMBLERS
The
Layton Brothers
The Layton Brothers appear to have arrived in Sydney from England independently from about 1882: Alfred, William J, Martin Louis Layton, J T Layton and F Layton.
Alfred resided at 9 Union Street, Newtown and
the business appears to have operated from the same property – ‘J T Layton
organ builder 9 Union St, Newtown’.[1]
The brothers learned their trade from Foster and Andrews who were organ builders in Hull, Yorkshire (UK). They are referred to in the Sydney Morning Herald on 23 September 1885 as giving advice on the organ at Sydney University and the Sydney Town Hall organ.[2]
They were involved with several organs in Sydney: All Saint’s Anglican Church, Woollahra; Congregational Church, Redfern; Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Erskineville; St John’s Anglican Church, Glebe and All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral, Bathurst and St Saviour’s Anglican Cathedral, Goulburn.
Charles James Jackson, appears to have sold his organ building business to Mr Martin Louis Layton in 1887.
THE ORGAN
The first organ was located in the weatherboard building (the first church) in Fotheringham Street and was a harmonium. This was presumably bought from W H Paling who imported numerous such instruments. There were further costs associated with the harmonium: tuning by W H Paling, repairs by Elvy & Co. and further repairs by W H Paling.
In May 1884 Mr Bullock was instructed to sell the old organ for £30 if possible. Evidently he was successful and £30 ‘by sale of organ’ was recorded in the Statement of Receipts and Expenditure for year ending April 1885 (possibly received September 1884).
Other organs were bought for church properties: a new Bell Organ was bought for the Sunday School in August 1894 and at some stage prior to June 1911 an organ was
bought for the Mission Hall. However, in 1911 it was brought to Christ Church (the Church was rededicated to St Luke in June 1963).
The pipe organ situated in Christ Church (St Luke’s), is by Wordsworth and Maskell of Leeds, UK. It is the only example of the builders in Australia and is therefore of national significance. It is now a heritage-listed item.
John Stiller in his documentation in May 1981 suggests that there is a possible abbreviated Job No. 78 which appears in several parts of the organ. The pipes were decorated by “W Hudson Decorator Leeds works England 1883 Wordsworth and Maskell Builders”.
Recorded in a Booklet of Testimonials published c. 1887 Wordsworth Organ-builder file the organ is listed as “34. Sydney - unidentified church - c. 1884”.
During the Vestry Meeting on the evening of 9 April 1883 there was some discussion concerning the position of the proposed new organ. It was originally situated at the back of the church.
The Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday 11 December 1883 in the column ‘News of the Day‘ gives a description of the organ: “The following is a description of the organ for Christ Church, Enmore, and in aid of the funds for which several excellent concerts have been given:- 1. dulciana, 8 feet; 2. gamba, 8 feet; 3. open diapason, 8 feet; 4. harmonic flute, 4 feet; 5. principal, 4 feet; 6. fifteenth, 2 feet. Composition Pedals: 1. dulciana and gamba; 2. add. open diapason, principal; 3. full organ. Swell Organ: 1. dulciana, 8 feet; 2. stopped diapason, 8 feet tone; 3. open diapason, 8 feet; 4. principal, 4 feet; 5. fifteenth, 2 feet; 6. oboe, 8 feet; Composition Pedals: 1. dulciana and stopped diapason; 2. add, open diapason and principal; 3. full swell. Pedal Organ: Bourdon, 16 feet tone; pedals radiating. Couplers: Swell to great, swell to pedals, great to pedals.”
In actual fact, the Swell dulciana should read “keraulophon”, the stopped diapason should read “lieblich gedact” and fifteenth should read “harmonic picollo” (sic); the composition pedals 1. should read “keraulophon and stopped diapason”.
There are no references in the Church Minutes regarding an order for a new organ. However, it can be assumed that the organ was paid for initially by Mr J Hinchcliffe: £30 was paid to him during 1884 and in the table of receipts and expenditure for the organ fund prepared for a meeting on 4 May 1887 the sum of £185.1.0 was paid to him for the Organ with a balance of £109.14.0 due to him.
Layton Brothers were paid £25.0.0 to install the organ.
The Sydney Morning Herald Friday 4 January 1884 records the opening of the new organ. “The new organ at Christ Church, Enmore was formally opened on Tuesday last. It was built by Messrs. Wordsworth and Maskell, of Leeds. The oboe on the swell and dulciana on the great are of very good quality. For its size it is considered a very powerful instrument. The work of erection (on which so much depends) has been well and faithfully carried out by Messrs Layton Brothers, organ builders of Newtown, and has given great satisfaction. They commenced unpacking on Monday the 17th, and had it ready for use on Saturday, the 22nd December, completing the work in less than six days. The Very Reverend the Dean preached at the opening service, and the choir under the direction of Mr Hugh Duff, the organist, sang very well the service and anthem allotted to them”.
The tender of Messrs Layton Brothers for tuning the organ was considered in January 1884 and accepted.
In May 1886, then organist Mr Duff wrote a letter requesting the change of position of the Organ. The work began in September 1886 to remove the organ to its current position.
Picture (left) The organ shortly after it was moved to its present location c.1900 (St Luke’s archives)
C. Richardson & Co. took over the tuning from 1887 and installed a Tremulant in 1894. The stop was labelled “Tremulent”.
‘A motor for organ blowing’ began to be installed in July 1913 costing £25.79.8.
The last recorded tuning by Richardson & Sons was during 1926 for £22.8.9 and A J Hunter (Alexander James) began looking after the organ some time before 1933, possibly as early as 1927.
Peter Jewkes commented during the 2009-10 restoration that between 1925 and 1939 the original Great Fifteenth was discarded and replaced by a tenor C compass Clarionet which was possibly made by Fincham in the 20s or 30s, and probably supplied to whoever was tuning the organ at the time. It could have been either Richardson or Hunter.
Sidney Thomas Noad took over the tuning from 1942.
A report to church outlining the repairs to the organ on 12 June 1952 stated that there was a problem with the groove block of the bass notes of the Great Open Diapason. Many of the lower notes of the Clarionet stop were not speaking due to the broken resonators which were in a bad state of repair when Noad commenced maintaining the organ.
During the 2009-10 restoration, Peter Jewkes noted that previous work on the sliders was almost certainly the work of Arthur Brown, an employee of Noad and also that the split pallets had been screwed together. This work may have been carried out during Noad’s repairs in 1952. During an inspection by Mr John Hargraves and Mr Chris Sillince in 1993, Chris suggested that the playing action could be lightened by use of split pallets in the windchests. In actual fact, when the Great windchest was opened, split pallets had been used, but the adjusting screws had been tightened up so that the pallets operated as single units only.
Mr Noad advised the Parish Council of the discontinuance of organ maintenance in November 1971 and that Mr Ian D Brown was to take over. Quotes were sought for the restoration and Mr Anthony Welby’s was accepted for priority work in three stages. The Great Organ was completed and ready to play by the end of May 1976 with Stage I complete and payments finalised in March 1977. Peter Jewkes reported in 2010 that the action had held up well.
However, in July 1977 damp affected the soundboards, resulting in cyphering. $2,000 was needed to replace the soundboards, but it was decided to defer the work to a later date.
The organ sustained malicious damage in late 1979. There had been possibly three previous break-ins to the organ chamber September 1957, March 1958 and 1960s. Anthony Welby repaired broken pedal action and reset pedal tuning stopper and the damaged pipes replaced with new ones made by George Fincham & Sons of Melbourne.
John Stiller as research officer with OHTA investigated and documented the organ on 8 May 1981. He noted several alterations which had been made to the organ: the Great Clarionet was not original, the original pedal board had been replaced with a concave radiating one, the hand-blowing apparatus has been removed, the bottom shutter of the Swell box has been permanently clamped shut.
He noted its significance - the only example of the company’s work in Australia. Most of the original pipework remained (except for that which replaced the stolen pipes and the Clarionet pipes), the case was original (except for the decorations of the display pipes), the console was original and contained nineteenth century stopknobs, stop labels, keyboards, keyboard cheeks, composition pedals, builder’s nameplate and Swell shutter control, the double-rise bellows had been retained and were weighted with the original Wordsworth and Maskell (W&M) bellows weights, the mechanical key, stop and combination actions were original.
In 1989 St Mary’s Waverley donated their old BOB blower when they had a new one fitted, valued at $500.
By 1993, the position of the organ was again in question - should it be moved to the back of the church?
This question was set aside when the deteriorating condition of the organ led to consideration of the restoration of the instrument.
THE QUESTION OF RESTORATION
 Damaged Swell Box. |
 Damaged Great pipe work |
Old Trackers – connecting keyboard to pipes |
Reports on the current state of the organ in June 1986 were prepared but were not acted upon. A renewed report was given in 1990 which stated that the pipes were ‘worn out’ and the soundboards ‘warped - both in urgent need of repair. Present estimates of restoration were about $30,000 - a complete rebuild. It was noted that the organ had been listed by the Heritage Council and should be retained. If the parish wanted to remove it the Heritage Council would put an injunction on it in all probability’. The Heritage Council would aid in the vicinity of 25%- 30%. However due to the recession money was drying up. It was therefore suggested that a more viable option was the purchase of an electronic organ at about $5,000 - $13,000 and to scrap the pipe organ. The other advantage of the electronic was that there was a ‘low maintenance cost over many years and reliability’.
Application was made to the 1994 NSW Heritage Assistance Program and again for funding, this time on a dollar-for dollar basis, to the Heritage Council in 1995. However, both were unsuccessful. It was decided that after two rejections from the Heritage council for funding, that the organ be offered to someone. In the meantime, the parish was offered the Rogers organ from St Paul’s Anglican Church at Burwood. The Churchwardens and parish Council accepted the offer. From the Church Scene 31 October 1997: “New Rogers organ was installed by Cliff Bingham. It is positioned in a newly constructed organ gallery at the rear of the church.”
The Parish Council voted to retain the old organ and keep it in a workable condition with the current maintenance maintained until further enquiries be made about maintenance schedule. So it was tuned every 6 months.
In 2008 an Organ Restoration Committee was formed consisting of Kathy Drummond (Chair), Stuart Grigg (Treasurer), Michael Davies, Peter Brown, Fabian Lo Schiavo, Ann Petersen and Kay Younie. The Rector, Rev Gwilym Henry-Edwards gave his enthusiastic support to the restoration. The committee appointed Dr Kelvin Hastie Consultant for the restoration, and with his assistance funding was sought from the Heritage Council of NSW. Peter D G Jewkes Pty Ltd was awarded the contract to restore the organ. The application was successful.
An OHTA tax-deductible fund was approved and permission for the restoration was obtained from the organ’s owner, the Anglican Church Property Trust Diocese of Sydney. Marrickville Council also donated funding.
Further funding was sought under the Federal Government’s Jobs Funds Program in May 2009 but was unsuccessful, however, we were undeterred...
We lost no time in dismantling the organ
After the organ had been removed it became apparent that the organ chamber was itself in need of repair. Where the organist sits, the joists and bearers had decayed and rotted, having never been properly installed. Two concrete footings and a new bearer were installed. New joists were installed between the new bearer and the wall foundation. New cypress pine floor boards were fitted. The walls of the chamber were cleaned and painted to match the church. Incidentally, the roots from the big fig tree out the front had gone all the way across the church diagonally and had emerged in the organ chamber.
A summary of the restoration work carried out is as follows: the entire organ has been cleaned. The stop, combination, key, pedal and coupler actions have been restored. The tremulant mechanism has been replaced. The pipework has been repaired and the un-original Clarionet pipes discarded and replaced by new Mixture II ranks. The soundboards of the Great and Swell and the Pedal windchests have been restored as has the console. The frame and Swell box have been repaired and repainted and the case panels, posts, rails and pinnacles have been repolished. The bellows have been releathered and the blower housing rebuilt.
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 Restored stop knobs of Great and Pedal Organ |
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The stop knob labels were unfortunately unable to be re-engraved owing to the thinness of the ivory used. New replica labels were made for the stop knobs and the division plates. The misspellings of “Picollo” and “Tremulent” were not retained. The original builder’s plate on the impost rail was retained. The original labels are stored within the organ.
August Laukhuff supplied the tremulant and the pipes for the Mixture II, the pipe repairs were by Australian Pipe Organs, the polishing was carried out by Peter Clarke, stop knob restoration by Thomas Harrison & Sons, Anthony Rochester engraved the labels and plates.
For a full account of the restoration, see The Sydney Organ Journal Spring 2011 and OHTA News April 2011.
For a more complete account of the history of the organ, a booklet has be written which may be obtained by emailing the church at rector(at)stlukesenmore(dot)org(dot)au
Members of the parish are to be congratulated for their support, both financial and in kind as well as to the many contributors from outside the parish.
Stage II of the restoration remains - the rediapering of the 31 façade pipes. The pipe on the left hand side has been stripped to reveal the decoration of the outside pipes. The central pipes are possibly of a different design.
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Donation Form |
