Gashmu saith it! Gashmu crops up in the Old Testament (Nehemiah 6 v.6, Author-ised Version), where he has obtained lasting fame, or rather, notoriety, as the sponsor of inaccurate and misleading information. Just as in the Arts world there are awards of an 'Oscar', so when doing research into organ writings, I have often felt that there should be awards of a 'Gashmu'.

I am not gunning for those who, especially in earlier days, had little but hearsay and rumour to go on when starting their researches. I am targeting the pontificators from suppositions and the hopeful guessers, sometimes cropping up in somewhat un-expected quarters. There are, sad to say, some whose information is almost auto-matically received 'with caution', as J. W. Warman has it in his book. Sometimes respected sources slip up. The Organist and Choirmaster in 1904 stated 'Many may not know that the organ at Portsmouth Parish Church was built by Father Smith in 1765. It was meant for Toledo Cathedral in Spain, but being shipwrecked at Hayling Island was bought for the church it now stands in'.

Gashmu first class! Smith died in 1708 and the organ was in fact built by Jordan in 1718. The number of shipwrecked and rescued organs does not approach that of organs 'played on by Handel', but most of them are just as bogus. Where do the tales originate?

Occasionally parish magazines contain useful information, and sometimes surprises. Home Words for December 1915 offers this intriguing item. The Rector of Littleton near Shepperton, Rev. H.M. Wood, is 'one of the finest amateur organ-designers and organ-builders in the Kingdom'. The organ there costing £1,200 was designed and part built by him,'and possesses several features invented by the Rector, and since copied by famous builders into other organs'. Can anyone elucidate this? My wanderings in Middlesex during the war do not seem to have led me into this church.

Unexpected information in Patent 1162, 15 January 1913. Henry Willis II states 'It is the object of my invention to provide means whereby stops, when drawn, shall be more easily distinguishable from those that are not drawn. Accordingly I provide means for illuminating the ends of the stops when the latter are drawn out, which will be extinguished when the stops are put in. I fit the ends of the stops with electric incandescent lamps. Thus it will be seen that every stop that is out is illuminated and so easily distinguishable from the stops that are not out'. I do not know whether Willis ever put this into practice anywhere. Probably the question of the life of the bulbs hindered this at that time.

Very eccentric case designs came from architect George Pace, late of York, a kindly man who would sit in church imagining what he would like to see. He did not like organ pipes on display, so he produced designs of fumed oak vertical strips, acoustically acceptable but not visually to the conventional viewer. At York Priory Church the warden wrote asking us 'When are you going to remove the organ scaffolding'. (Herbert Norman)

William Amps, who died in 1910, had been organist of King's, Christ's, and Peterhouse Colleges, and Conductor of the University Musical Society. Quantities of music by him slumbered in a vestry cupboard at Christ's until 1930; his hymn tune Venice is still in use. He was at King's from 1855 to 1876, where A.M. Goodhart records of him 'Imagine Mendelssohn's War March of the Priests being played by Amps before Wesley's Wilderness'. Ending quite loud in the key of F major, it naturally led the soloist to start on C. Amps, before long, put him right by pulling out a Swell reed'.

In the Manuscripts in the Bodleian (Rawlinson B.464 fo.159) we read concerning Wrexham:
'Here was, about ye time of ye Civil warres, a verie extraordinarie Organ, which the Clerk compared to that of St. Peter in Rome, onely own'd that to be ye superior.'

In a Gazateer (sic) of the same period this graffito has been inserted:

In Wrexham is ye Rarest Steeple in ye three Nations, and hath had ye fayrest Orgaines in Europe till ye late Warr in Charles ye First his raigne, whose Parliament Forsses pulled him and them down with other Ceremonial Ornaments, and made ye Blackcoates rather weare Swordes than Surplis, and Drumes were Orgaines stood, and Pikes instead of pipes.

In Fuller's Worthies of England (1662) is recorded:
'DENBIGHSHIRE ORGANS. These were formerly most famous (the more because placed in a Parochial, not Cathedral, Church) for beauty, bigness, and tuneableness; though far short of those in worth which Michael, Emperor of Constantinople caused to be made of pure gold, and beneath those in bigness which George the Salamitan Abbot made to be set up in the Church of his Convent, whose biggest pipe was eight and twenty feet long and fourspans in compass. What is become of Wrexham Organs I know not: and could heartily wish they had been removed into some gentleman's house, seeing such as accuse them for superstitions in Churches must allow them lawful in private places. Otherwise such Moroso's deserve not to be owner of an articulate voice sounding through the Organ of a Throat.'

We should like to know not only what happened to them (one can guess) but what they were like.

The organ-builder Wedlake was fellow apprentice with Henry Willis at Gray's; The two of them off their own bat - still apprentices - made a 3-stop organ for violinist Dando for use in Crosby Hall. (Musical Opinion, April 1909). The Daily Chronicle 27th May 1907 tells us that Wedlake's daughter Polly, who was his workmate (to the surprise of some clergy in churches) had invented a novel pneumatic action which was being installed in Seven Kings Wesleyan Church. Can anyone comment?

John Hanson Sperling is a well-known name in organological circles. I was interested to come across it in 'Pevsner'. Under Wicken Bonhunt in Essex he notes:
'Chancel 13th century. The rest of the church was built in 1858-9 and designed by John Hanson Sperling, who may well be responsible for the gruesome Rectory of 1856, red and yellow brick bands and several sharp gables.'

'Mr. Dixon's statement as to high pressure reeds blending with the fluework seems difficult to reconcile with tbe ensemble effect of most Willis organs. There the flue-work may indeed 'blend', but it is like the lamb lying down inside the lion.'
(R.J.D., Organist and Choirmaster July 1907; probably Dallas)

John Barlow was in 1734 dismissed as organist of St Paul's Bedford for playing the Rogue's March as the Mayor and Corporation processed out. In revenge he vanished with some pipes from the organ.

Answers to Who said this?
1. Thomas Emerson. (Computers included)
2. George Santayana. (Now an inscription at Auschwitz)
3. M.A. Vente, 1945.
4. J.H. Burn, 1932
Return to Index Page for this issue
Return to Reporter Index Page