DAVID WICKENS____________________________JACKSON OF LIVERPOOL (AND BOLTON)
Mr Jackson of Liverpool is mentioned twice in 'An Account of Country Organs' in Hopkins & Rimbault: the Collegiate institute, Liverpool, (III.527) and Preston Parish Church (III.594). Wedgwood credits him with the invention uf the 'Flat Twenty-first' (or 'Sharp Twentieth' as Jackson named it) (Dictionary of Organ Stops, p.68), and Audsley says he was the first person in England to use a pedalboard with a 32-note compass, from C to g' (The Art of Organ Building, II,33). An article in the Bolton Chronicle of 26 August 1854 claims that Jackson invented diagonal stop-jambs. Whether or not these claims were true, Jackson was evidently an imaginative organ-builder.
"Mr. Jackson of Liverpool" was Richard Jackson, born in Rochdale in about 1807. He married a Rochdale girl, Elizabeth (Betty). His two eldest children, Thomas and Sarah, were born in Rochdale, the younger in 1832 or 1833, so we might reasonably surmise that Richard trained in Rochdale (that cradle of organ builders: Nicholson, Harrison..). He set up in business in Bolton with William Parvin, in 1835, having just 'returned from London' (*1). The address from 1836 to 1851 was Crown Street, although the partners had split up by the middle of 1837.William Parvin was born in Thirsk in about 1809. After the dissolution of the partnership, he may have returned to Yorkshire for a time, as his eldest child, Thomas, was born in Wakefield. By 1841 he was back in Bolton, and had set up on his own as a music seller and organ builder, ultimately in Bradshawgate. The firm survived until the early death of Thomas, in 1884 (*2).
Richard Jackson became bankrupt in 1851. His stock in trade and furniture were sold by auction on his premises in Crown Street, on 17 and 18 September. He had, however, already established himself in Liverpool; his seventh child, Robert Henry, was born there in 1850. His address at the 1851 census was 28 Springfield, Liverpool, and he is described as employing fifteen men. Richard's brother, William, (born in about 1809), was also with Richard and family in Liverpool, but subsequently returned to Rochdale and set up as a maker of organ pipes. Richard's eldest son, also called William, now sixteen, is described in the Census as "organ builder apprentice" but is already included in the firm's title given in Slater's Directory for 1851 (albeit in Bolton). Richard Jackson disappears from view after 1857. Rumour has it that he went to India and / or the Isle of Man.
We next find a William Jackson and a Richard Jackson building organs in the U.S.A. These are the sons of Richard (senior) and William (senior) respectively, a reversal of names, so to speak. William (junior) was born in 1835 and settled in the U.S.A. in 1868. Richard (junior) was born in 1856 (though the U.S. Census of 1880 gives 1851, and adds a middle name, (Waiter) and settled in the U.S.A. in 1871 - after having registered in the U.K. Census of that year. Young William Jackson (the epithet is mine, to obviate confusion) is described in a Chicago music journal, The Song Messenger of the North-West, December 1869, as having had 'much experience in organ building in Liverpool, London and India' (the last gives support to the rumour that his father went there). This U.S. connection is extensively reviewed in The Stopt Diapason, a journal devoted to the history of the organ in Chicago, and the Mid West (*3).
The following is an embryo opus list, obviously far from comprehensive. If you can add to the list, please let me know (with sources of information).
Jackson and Parvin
Richard Jackson
Sources
Footnotes |