Barry Oakley

A recital to commemorate the life of the late Peter Goodman is to be given on Wednesday, 6th April at 12.30pm on the organ of Hull City Hall where Peter was City Organist for over 35 years. The recital is to be given by Ian Hare, a long-standing friend of the Goodman family.

Keep it up MM. I was up quite early this morning to check my e-mail and also found your posting on the Mander Forum. I was totally absorbed by your U-Tube clips that the 1-O'Clock News was well nigh due and I was still in my dressing gown. A truly super array of music, musicians and organs.

You are not the only one, MM, who would love to get involved. I tried several years ago, enquiring first of Alistair Rushworth, thinking that R&D would have a great deal of documentation relating to Compton. He was of little help, putting me on to his man in Edinburgh who had been a Compton employee. I then had a lead to Frank Hancock who was John Compton's reed voicer in the company's more latter days. Unfortunately, when I telephoned I learned that Frank lay very ill in bed, but I spent quite some time talking to his wife. She and Frank had met one another when they were both employed by the firm. A most interesting and knowledgeable lady, not only did she talk about the company's core business of organ building, but went on to describe the work they did in designing and making electronic equipment for the war effort. If only I had been more attentive to some of the anecdotes of Jimmy Taylor who I met on a number of occasions when the company was rebuilding the Hull City Hall organ. Little did I realise that John Compton was to become a legend in the history of British organ building. But I was only a mere lad still a year short of leaving school.

Dr John Pemberton, curator of the Hull City Hall Compton organ is also a medical doctor.

If you write to the following and quoting the above names you may get an answer. The Grand Secretary, Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, London.

If you were to take a trip to Sheffield you would see that when Copeman Hart installed their original digital instrument in the cathedral it constructed sympathetic visible speaker cabinets for the organ near the choir stalls. However I don't know that I could use the word "sympathetic" for the large structure at the bottom of the nave that essentially houses speakers for the pedal voices. The exception to this is a small speaker within what was the positif case located on the north wall.

This is an interesting topic which starts out with an in-between-the-lines implication that organ builders who may have been freemasons have been unduly favoured with contracts. I'm not aware if any of our present or past organ builders are/were freemasons. It's none of my business. The only organ building company I suspect that may have had Masonic connections is in America; that is the long-established Austin Organ Company. It's trade mark incorporates a set of compasses. And there is a website (I cannot remember the name but it concentrates on New York) which shows that the Austin company built quite a considerable number of organs for Masonic halls in that city. That is not to say that they were unduly favoured.

My posting is not in any way championing digital organs; anyone who knows the authentic voices of pipes soon rumbles that they are listening to electronically produced sounds from a loudspeaker. As Cynic has said, they have their place as practise devices. But there is much nonsense spoken about the longevity of circuit boards and replacement parts. I know of a two-manual digital organ that gets used virtually every day and was purchased around 25 years ago. It has never needed replacement components or circuit boards nor has its original sound quality deteriorated. On the few rare occasions it has needed the attention of a technician all that has been needed is a squirt of WD40 on rotary switches where there has been ingress of dust particles. Even after 25 and should the need arise, replacement circuit boards and semi-conductors remain available.

Yes, I can remember the occasional appearance of Gordon Reynolds at the console of the Compton organ in Holy Trinity Parish Church, Hull. He was a pupil of the charismatic Norman Strafford, organist and master of the choristers at Holy Trinity, architect of the rebuilt Hull City Hall organ and Peter Goodman's predecessor as city organist.

I would never have thought, Paul, that you were a man to read the gutter tabloids. Of course, Poulson and his cronies were kicked out at the time by the United Grand Lodge of England. Incidentally, I see you are giving a recital later in the year at Durham Cathedral in aid of Masonic Charities.

I just wondered if the Lewis in Chesterfield Parish Church (St Mary and All Saints) has any bearing on this thread?

Yes, Jim, I readily agrre with your words. I confess to overlooking Father Paul who as well being musically knowledgable also has a lovely sense of humour. What an excellent choice the Bishop of Shrewsbury made when appointing Fr Paul to St Werburgh's.

quote name='Henry Willis' date='Jan 8 2011, 06:12 PM' post='56132'] There is only one company named "Henry Willis & Sons Ltd" Mr. Oakley. Our Company Registration number is 70718, registered in 1901. I took over as Managing Director, installed in that position by HW4, on the 2nd Oct 1997 and the shareholding was subsequently acquired from all of the former shareholders on the 28th of November of that same year. There was no "change" of company, winding-up, cessestion of trading etc., only a change of Directors and then share holders - as is often the case in limited Companies. Henry Willis, Henry Willis & Sons and then Henry Willis & sons Ltd (to quote all three names) has traded continuously since 1845. As to the quiet implication that we can't be the same as we don't still operate from Petersfield - sorry, have I missed something there? We moved our Head Office (and Registered Office therefore) to Liverpool in 2001, where we have had a Branch since 1854; we still have a southern Branch, though not in Petersfield. For information we have been with the same Bank for 143 years. Mr Wyld, thank-you for your response. The mystery surrounding Henry Willis & Sons Limited, for mystery it has been since it apparently disappeared from the UK organ-building industry with the retirement some years ago of Henry Willis IV, has perplexed many. And the fact that the company suddenly appeared with a new head office/works in Liverpool and not Petersfield further added to the perplexity. Perhaps it was just due to poor public relations. But the organ-building industry is perhaps not exactly unknown for the buy-out of trading names.

Roger Fisher’s recital yesterday at St Werburgh’s, Chester, and in commemoration of the life and work of the late George Sixsmith was a very well-attended occasion. Played on the organ that George and his company installed in 2004, it was a fitting tribute to a much loved man and organ builder. I’m sure that Roger’s words fully encapsulated the thoughts and feelings of everyone there. No doubt it was a great and reassuring comfort to Andrew and his family that so many attended to pay their respects to the memory of his father, George.

Is this of any assistance? http://www.google.com/patents?id=OMBMAAAAE...lis&f=false

An interesting thought. The former Willis company operated from Petersfield, Hampshire, and was run under the direction of Henry Willis IV.

I did not hear the latest broadcast from Chester, but Philip Rushforth's ability as both an organist and choir director have always impressed me. I frequently witnessed his role at Southwell Minster over 10 years ago when he was Paul Hale's deputy and also when Paul was recuperating for a lengthy period after hip replacement surgery. I think today is Philip's birthday. Happy birthday.

There still seems to be a steady supply of teenage organists who are appointed organ scholars at our cathedrals. But do they all go on to greater things? I knew one talented young man who around 15 years ago was one such organ scholar at a cathedral; took his ARCO exams and was awarded just about all the prizes going and then went on to Cambridge as an organ scholar. He graduated, not in music, and that I think was the end of things. As far as I know he no longer goes near an organ.

Although owned by an individual the organ is stored at Oulton Abbey, the Benedictine monastery near Stone. Staffordshire. Unfortnately I am unable to give you more details re size and weight. The stoplist is as follows: Great Open Diapason 8ft Stopped Diapason 8ft Dulciana 8ft Principal 4ft Stopped Flute 4ft Twelfth 2.2/3ft Fifteenth 2ft Swell Gedackt 8ft Clarabella 8ft Salicional 8ft Gemshorn 4ft Gedackt 2ft Oboe 8ft Trumpet 8ft Tremulant Sw to Gt Pedal Major Bass 16ft Bourdon 16ft Principal 8ft Flute 4ft Barry Oakley

Your posting, Tony, has proved most useful. A friend has a two-manual and pedal valve-system Norwich (maybe by Miller) that is in need of repair although is available FOC as she wishes to dispose of it. I have initially contacted Ormatronix by e-mail to gauge their interest. If anyone on this forum is also interested, please make contact with me.

I am so sorry to learn of George's death. He was a truly lovely man, always full of fun and one of the most helpful men you could ever wish to know. I will always remember his generosity to me several years when he allowed me and a colleague to use his pipe shop in order to make respectable some battered pipes from an organ we were renovating and rebuilding. I will get in touch with Andrew to express my sadness and condolences at his passing. RIP

Not simply a rebuild, but quite a sizeable enlargement.

I think there's not an altogether shortage of young organists. The son of two friends off mine, James Norrey (22), has just secured the assistant's post at Llandaff. The late Peter Goodman heard him when James was barely 17 and remarked, "That young man has flair in abundance." It never ceases to amaze me that talented young organists seem to be shunned by the BBC from appearing on its "Young Musicians" competition.

Sorry to learn of your mother's death. The Haltemprice crematorium was originally a chapel for the De la Pole psychiatric hospital and was later a hospital specialising in orthopeadic medicine. It probably has an electronic toaster of some sort, but maybe, just maybe the pipe organ is still there.

I understand the very talented James Norrey, presently organ scholar at Chelmsford Cathedral, has been appointed Assistant at Llandaff.