Freeman and Rowntree in Father Smith record that Smith was given the contract on 8th May 1694, for an organ for Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, together with £100 on account. Pressure of work including Wellclose Square, St. Paul's, and Great St. Mary's in Cambridge, prevented him from fulfilling his contract. After three years, the dean and chapter entered into a fresh agreement with Renatus Harris, giving him a letter of attorney to recover the money advanced to Smith. Notes (rather telegraphic) made by T C D who was researching the Public Record Office in 1931 tell us that an organ by Smith for that cathedral was afterwards apparently put in the "late new chapel at Whitehall" and Renatus Smith (sic) and Dr. Blow depose. PRO no. 27 in bundle C24/1206 pt. 1, William Bishop of Kildare v Bernard Smith; Trinity Term 1698. The error is presumably that of the transcriber.

C24/1207/101 Smith v. Aedis Christi (Christ Church) Dublin 1698 has among the deponents Joachim Birtfeild of St. Martin in the Fields, organ builder aged 36, James Comb of St. James, Westminster, organ builder aged 26, John Knoppal of St. Martin in the Fields, and Dr. John Blow. These entries illuminate the bare statement of Freeman. If anyone cares to visit the Public Record Office, he may find further information of interest in them.

I expressed curiosity about "Hydraulic Organs" as referred to in Evelyn's diary for 1644 (BIOSR 20/3/23). Keith Elcombe writes referring me to plate 3 in Sumner's The Organ and reporting a paper by Lady Jeans at Manchester University in 1967. Briefly, the hydraulic organs referred to were not those in which wind is controlled by water (Hydraulus) but where it is delivered by water. A constant supply of water down a pipe, as for a fountain or grotto, will provide a fairly constant supply of air which can, by the somewhat Heath-Robinson apparatus devised by Kircher, and illustrated by Sumner, be used to blow pipes. However improbable this may seem, Lady Jeans produced pictorial and descriptive evid-ence, and instanced by Tivolo, mentioned by Evelyn. The one at Monte Cavallo, Evelyn associates with a fish pond and an ample bath and no doubt fountains were associated elsewhere.

In my paper on Rose Yard (JBIOS 13) I referred to Charlie Smith, an elderly voicer who had been at Bevingtons from the 1880s for most of his life and gave me much information. There was an earlier Smith, Henry, who was with the firm from 1863 for the whole of his working life. Some interest has been expressed - and was Charlie related to Henry?

Apparently not. Charlie was born in 1870, was a Roman Catholic and sang in Elgar's church choir in Worcester. Later, his father became butler to Cardinal Manning and the move was made to London. About 1884, Charlie started with Bevingtons, then the firm's heyday, and became a first class all-round workman. In due course he went out with many of the exported organs. He recounted one trip which he started in Gibraltar which contained several Bevington organs; he went all along the coast to Beirut then back to Gibraltar, a total absence of two years. Fifty years later, the heyday had passed and, with the destruction of the Soho works by fire and the move to temporary premises in Peckham, there did not seem much future in it (the firm ceased to trade by 1950). Charlie went to work for Noel Mander to whom I am indebted for some of the information. He worked there until his death in 1956 and I am sorry not to have had longer acquaintance with this informative, interesting and much-loved gentleman.

An enquiry comes about the Bishop organ in St. Helena, Lundy Island. Does anyone know what was its original home, or anything about its history? E.A. Stanbrook, 8 Albert Road, Harrow HA2 6PS (0181 427 7067) would be most grateful, for a history of the Island which he is compiling.

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Benjamin Rogers, composer of the Magdalen Tower hymn tune, after 21 years as organist there, was "retired" on a pension, partly because of his troublesome behaviour in the chapel
where he would usually talk so loud in the organ loft that he offended the company, and would not leave off, though he hath been sent to by the President not to make such a scandalous noise there.
There were frequent complaints of him from the clerks, to whom, especially the chanter, he used to be very cross, in
not playing the services as they were able and willing to sing, but out of a thwarting humour would play nothing but "Canterbury" tune, wherein he minded not the honour of the College but his own ease and laziness.
Walmisley, having played shockingly at Trinity College because he was drunk, was summoned to appear before the powers that were. A friend called on him to comfort him and found him in a room full of tobacco smoke, contemplating an empty port bottle. "Whatever can I say to them?" asked Walmisley. His friend replied, "Say I am become like a bottle in the smoke, yet do I not forget thy statutes."

Answer to Who said this?:
Dickens. Pickwick Papers. Meeting of the Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association.

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