AN OLD ORGAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 56, 3 September 1938, Page 11

AN OLD ORGAN

INTERESTING RELIC

FIRST IN NEW ZEALAND

(Special to the "Evening Post.") WANGANUI, September 2. For the past, two years, Mr. Raynor White, the well-known brganist, has interested himself in an old mechanical pipe organ which has stood in a corner of the Wanganui Museum for the past forty years. Mr. White not only restored the organ but endeavoured to learn its history, at the request of the Auckland Historical Society. The fact that the organ has been in the Dominion for over 100 years make it of historical interest to the country and a relic of the industrial revolutionary period of the 1780's. Of its history before it came overseas little is known, although mention is made of it being used in a country parish church in England. In early days musicians were not as plentiful as they are today, and the ingeniousness with which the engineers met this contingency is remarkable. The quaint old oak cabinet reveals little of its internal secrets; but the mechanism within is remarkable. The instrument stands some 10 feet high. with, gilded "dummy" pipes. Power to operate the organ is supplied by a handle at the rear, and there are five stops at the side. A roller is inserted, covered with raised segents of copper or "lifts" which operate triggers. These triggers actuate the backfalls and trackers, and so admit air to the pipes. There are three rollers, and on each there are ten tunes, about half of which are known today. The air reservoir is in perfect condition, with vellum bellows. These are operated by a foot treadle. It is possible for one person to play the "organ, but it is so exhausting that it is thought two always did so. An interesting feature of the construction is that the gears, wheels, and moving parts are nearly all made of wood.

Recently Canon W. G. Williams, now of Napier, and formerly of Wanganui, found among the, family records in the possession of Mr.. F. N. Williams, bf Napier, authentic reference to this old' organ, and this removes any doubt as to its being the first to be brought into the country. Until this information was found *it was thought that the "subscription" organ iri the Memorial Church at Russell held the honour. In a letter written by Mrs. Henry. Williams to a relative in England, dated 1830, she mentions that the organ which they had thought to be the one ordered and paid for by subscription was not that one at all, but another organ, a gift from their-uncle, the Rev. Mr. Marsh, in England to William and Henry Williams. (The "subscription" organ came later.) When Henry Williams built his church at Pakaraka in 1850, he put his organ in it. At his death, in 1867, it passed to his eldest son who moved it to his home near Waimate. About 1898 it descended to Edward Williams's son, the late Rev. A. O. Williams, who with the assistance of Mr. H. Drew, the founder of the Wanganui Museum, packed it and brought it to Wanganui. Before Mr. White left for Auckland he gave a short recital for the Museum Trustees. The old organ has a beautiful mellow tone, and no one Would believe that it was so old. He also wrote to London, in an endeavour to trace the maker, "A. Buckingham (foreman to the late Mr. Avery and Mr. Elliot), church and organ builder, No. 39, Frederick Place, Hampstead Place, London."

In connection with the campaign launched by the Rumanian authorities against the high cost of living, it is proposed to punish shopkeepers who disobey the new maximum price regulations by putting official signs, bearing the word "speculator" in big letters, outside their shops.