ORGANS IN & AROUND CHESTERFIELD
NOTES ON LOCAL ORGAN BUILDERS Chesterfield is situated close to the county border with Yorkshire. It is therefore much nearer to Sheffield (the industrial capital of South Yorkshire) than to its county town, Derby; and work by Sheffield organ-builders is more common than those from the Derby/Nottingham area. Brindley & Foster is the best-known of the Sheffield builders; unlike smaller provincial firms, their instruments are found up and down the country, and as far afield as South Africa, Ceylon, Australia and Argentina.
Albert Keates was born in Staffordshire and was apprenticed to John Stringer & Co.,
Hanley. He became head voicer and tuner for Brindley & Foster; in 1885 he set up in
business on his own account, firstly in partnership with Edwin Lowe. By the early 1890s he
had acquired large premises in Charlotte Road,
Sheffield, which were known firstly as the Albion Works, and later as the Sheffield
Organ Works. By the middle of the 1890s he had a full order-book and was building
three-manual organs. A provisional opus list shows some 90 new or substantially
rebuilt organs between 1889 and 1939, a few as far afield as Greenock, Penrith, Birmingham
and Belfast. The firm was still in existence in 1948; a few years later its name was taken
over by Harris Organs of Birmingham.
The Germanic influence on Yorkshire organ-building had been strong since Schulze's instruments of the 1850s and 60s. When Keates left Brindley & Foster he is said to have taken some of their best men with him, including Karl Schulze, a voicer who had trained under Edmund Schulze (and who was evidently no relation). A testamonial (date unknown) by J.I. Wedgwood commented:
As you know, I am not particularly well disposed towards diapason work of the Schulze order, yet your Diapason, based frankly on this pattern, seemed to me to possess the commendable features of its particular genus, without its undesirable attributes. I think your treatment of the treble is altogether superior to Schulze's method.High praise indeed from a well-known authority on organ-building. The kind of diapason Wedgwood mentions can still be heard in some of the earlier Keates organs; that at Hasland Methodist (c.1901) is outstandingly bold, while the organ at Whittington Methodist (1897) has a small but vigorously Germanic chorus on Great. A decade later the choruses at Mount Zion Methodist still rang out in a manner reminiscent of the best Victorian organs; but from this time on many Keates organs were much more subdued in tone, with rather ineffective, weak chorus ranks. Perhaps this watershed indicates the departure of Karl Schulze from Keates' shop.
A visit to some of Keates' surviving organs reveals work of surprisingly variable quality; his instruments are less like each other than those of any other builder in my experience. St. Paul, Norton Lees, Sheffield, has the 1909 Keates from Burngreave Congregational, Sheffield; there are 29 stops on only two manuals, with five swell reeds. St. Silas, Broomhill, Sheffield, has possibly the largest surviving unaltered Keates, a three-manual 33-stop organ of 1913. It contains one of the few complete full Swells that Keates built, though there is neither Great mixture nor Pedal reed. In 1992 it was in a neglected condition, but still gave evidence of former tonal glory. Keates' largest organ was built in 1931 for Uppingham School; it had 44 stops on 3 manuals.
The little-known firm of Bower & Dunn built many small instruments, mainly for non-conformist chapels. Both George Bower and Frederick Dunn trained with Brindley & Foster and Albert Keates before setting up in business together in 1908. Their first premises were in Leopold Street, Sheffield; in 1912 they moved to Club Garden Road where Dunn was still in business in 1958 at the age of 79. In that year he gave an interview to a local paper, which noted that he was from Manchester and had been a tinker's boy, a solderer's foreman and a professional footballer before moving to Sheffield at the age of 17. He had met Bower at Brindley & Foster, and their business partnership was established "with a few pounds and tons of enthusiasm and skill, and we never looked back". Dunn also said: "We don't actually make organs now, but we're kept constantly busy looking after those we have made in the past." The newspaper wrote that 'He fingered through a fistful of keys lovingly, and grinned: "A burglar would love this collection! Each one represents one of our organs. I know every organ straight away by its key."' In 1962 the business was taken over by T.C. Wilcock (previously foreman to Albert Keates) and transferred to his Priory Works in Heeley, Sheffield. In 1974 Chalmers & Hyde (the former a nephew of Wilcock, the latter from Bower & Dunn) took over Wilcock's firm, and continued to rebuild and overhaul organs from their premises in Dronfield, near Chesterfield.
A provisional list of organs by Bower & Dunn shows some 21 new instruments and substantial rebuilds between 1908 and the late 1930s. Their largest organ survives at Christ Church, Stonegravels, Chesterfield, with 22 stops on three manuals. Their work tended towards a very foundational ensemble with little upperwork. There was usually nothing musically outstanding, though an exception must be made for their 1924 organ at Hatfield House Lane Methodist, Sheffield (with its unusually pretty case, below); a predictable array of 12 stops with nothing above 4ft. belies some attractive tone-colours and a sturdy ensemble. Bower & Dunn organs are easily recognised by their large white composition drawstops with characteristic serif lettering (left); they took this feature from Brindley & Foster.
The smaller two-manual instruments by Keates and Bower & Dunn were working-class organs with very predictable stoplists. Great would comprise an Open Diapason and a Dulciana (always), a stopped or open 8ft. flute, a 4ft. Principal or Harmonic Flute or both, and sometimes a Fifteenth. Swell was built on an inevitable foundation of diapason, stopped flute, string and celeste. In the smallest instruments any one of, or combination of these ranks might be omitted. The 4ft. was usually a Gemshorn or Harmonic Flute, the reed a Cornopean or Oboe or both. To this basic recipe might be added a stopped 16ft., a Fifteenth, or, exceptionally, a mixture. Pedal had a Bourdon, often extended to 8ft. pitch; larger instruments would include a 16ft. wood open and sometimes a resultant 32ft. Smaller instruments might have little above 8ft. pitch on the manuals, perhaps just a 4ft. flute or gemshorn. Larger jobs would look complete on paper, but be voiced to emphasise the unison registers, with the chorus-work often reduced to a polite shimmer. An exception was the swell Cornopeans which produced a roar of sound, ideal for cowing recalcitrant congregations.
These organs are in many ways a very ordinary collection, as predictable as the homely-ponderous architecture of the chapels and churches in which they stood, as rugged as the industrial townscapes in which they sang their music. But let it be remembered that there is no such thing as a wholly bad or insignificant organ: every instrument, no matter how mundane or worn, has some characteristic which pleases the ear and warms the heart; has, like a human, some potential for growth and grace. Of this I have been assured by a personal acquaintance with the organs of Chesterfield.
(I am grateful to Michael Bland for his articles in the Sheffield & District Organists' and Choirmasters' Association newsletter, upon which I have freely drawn for the historical details about Sheffield organ-builders.)
Albert Keates builder's plate, St. Silas, Sheffield: Julian Rhodes, 1992
Bower & Dunn builders' plate, Lowgates Methodist, Staveley: Julian Rhodes, 1994
Bower & Dunn drawstops, Christ Church, Stonegravels: Nigel Tilley, 1991
Hatfield House Lane Methodist, Sheffield: Julian Rhodes, 1992
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