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Martin Cooke

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An article in Country Life this week with a photo of St Martin's church by Lutyens caused me to look things up on NPOR. A 3-manual Father Willis house organ was installed in 1947 but this was replaced in the 60s by one of those Christmas tree, spiralling instruments of HWIII. It's hard to imagine this was an improvement, musically. Does anybody on here happen to know anything behind this and what happened to the FW. 

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This organ was discussed on a previous thread “Henry Willis Junior Development Organ” in 2019 - scroll down to the two final comments:

https://mander-organs-forum.invisionzone.com/topic/4460-henry-willis-junior-development-organ/

At that time NPOR R01764 listed the organ with a photograph of the closed console and no specification.  Those details have since been helpfully provided: ‘DMM’ 2021.   Sadly, there is no information about the fate of the former Father Willis organ (NPOR D02221) which, on paper at least, looks to have been rather fine.   

I may be wrong, but I think the Junior Development organs were the brainchild of Henry Willis 4, rather than his father.

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6 hours ago, Rowland Wateridge said:

This organ was discussed on a previous thread “Henry Willis Junior Development Organ” in 2019 - scroll down to the two final comments:

https://mander-organs-forum.invisionzone.com/topic/4460-henry-willis-junior-development-organ/

At that time NPOR R01764 listed the organ with a photograph of the closed console and no specification.  Those details have since been helpfully provided: ‘DMM’ 2021.   Sadly, there is no information about the fate of the former Father Willis organ (NPOR D02221) which, on paper at least, looks to have been rather fine.   

I may be wrong, but I think the Junior Development organs were the brainchild of Henry Willis 4, rather than his father.

Ah yes - thanks Rowland - I even contributed to it. And, you're correct, of course - Henry IV. As I said in the previous thread, he tried to sell me one of these. 

Would still be interested in knowing what became of the original organ.

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