The web-site
of Christchurch's
Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Canterbury, New Zealand,
claims that its organ is the finest unspoilt example of 19th century
English organ building in the country. It is probably the best remaining
example of the work of Halmshaw of Birmingham. (Fig. 1)The business
was founded by Joseph Halmshaw about 1855, during an era of great
demand in the trade, partly brought about by the instruments on
show at the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851. For sixty of its
seventy years the firm was under the direction of members of the
founder's family: it closed about the time the first world war began.
Sound workmanship
ensured that Halmshaw organs had long lives. Many still remain and
are chiefly to be found in the North and Midlands of England. The
closure of churches and chapels in recent years has diminished the
number as has the trend to replace pipes with electronics. The Christchurch
instrument, the largest survivor, is the only one known to have
been exported. It is also one of the least altered: tendency to
change tonal schemes in accord with fads did not always result in
improvements - a lesson that is still often forgotten!
Comparison of
the Christchurch organ with the smaller one at Cliffe, in Kent,
(Fig 2) shows "family" features of this builder's work.
Display pipes were usually arranged in three compartments of approximately
equal width, with the middle one at a slightly different level from
the outer two - higher, as at Christchurch or lower, as at Cliffe.
The application of gold leaf to these pipes is also characteristic,
with broad central bands and narrower "collars" at the
tops. Stop jambs are parallel and receding , so that they slope
back toward the top.
A dozen years
or so after the completion of the Christchurch instrument, Halmshaws
took on a new apprentice . At 17, John Compton, older than most
beginners, had had to overcome parental opposition. A prolific inventor
and a masterly voicer, he eventually founded his own company which
built many instruments in the 1930s and 1940s, regarded as masterpieces
of their kind.
Fig. 2
Click on image to see large version
The sketch map (Fig 3) may guide visitors to the UK to Cliffe, which is marked by organ pipes: the village is on the B2000 road. One of Chaucer's pilgrims ~ the Wife of Bath ~ rides side-saddle from the direction of London. Owing to the reversal effected by printing she is riding on the offside! Her destination, the City of Canterbury, is marked by one of the cathedral's mediaeval roundels depicting agriculture of the day.
The lighthouse near Ramsgate marks the approximate point of entry by ferry from France while the smuggler's barrel is being recovered on Romney Marsh, North of Dover - another ferry port where today's contraband comes in bottles. On the South downs, a sheep idly wonders how its cousins in the New Zealand Canterbury are making out.
* Postscript (November 2004) Dr Ross Wards says that there are three - and possibly four - further Halmshaw organs in New Zealand. One, a twin sister of the instrument in Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, went to First Church, Dunedin and now forms the basis of the organ in St Andrew's Presbyterian church, Palmerston North. Dr Ron Newton says that members of the Halmshaw firm visited New Zealand.
For more information
see: Laurence Elvin's Pipes and Actions 1994 and Ronald G Newton's
Organs in Canterbury 1850-1885. Picture 1: by Ian Smith ~ from Ronald Newton's Organs in Canterbury;
- by permission
Picture 2: NPOR.
