Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Goondiwindi
[Photograph by Trevor Bunning (November 2011)]
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Goondiwindi
[Photograph by Trevor Bunning (November 2011)]
Historical and Technical Documentation by Geoffrey Cox
© OHTA 2011 (last updated November 2011)
Situated on the border between New South Wales and Queensland, Goondiwindi was established in the late 1830s as the first of three large stations in the district. It was gazetted as a town in 1888. The first Anglican service recorded in this district was in 1848 at Wyaga, and the first church on the present site was dedicated on 23 April 1882 by Bishop Hale. The foundation stone for the present church was laid in 1939, and it was opened and dedicated later that year. After being gutted by fire in 1942, the building was restored and finally consecrated by Archbishop Halse on 7 May 1944.1
Foundation stone, 1939, and stone commemorating
the restoration and consecration, 1944
[Photographs by Trevor Bunning (November 2011)]
The organ was completed in November 1952 by Whitehouse Bros of Brisbane at a cost of £1,865.17.6. to a specification that had been agreed in March 1950.2 It was dedicated on 10 December 1952.
The Whitehouse Bros organ of 1952
[Photograph by Trevor Bunning (October 2011)]
Dedication plaque on the organ, 10 December 1952
[Photograph by Trevor Bunning (November 2011)]
The Goondiwindi organ was of the same size as the one completed in the same month for the Wynnum Baptist Church (now at St Paul's Anglican Church, East Brisbane), although its tonal design was on a larger scale. Another pneumatic-action organ of the same size and similar specification was built by the firm in 1954 for St Anne's Anglican Church, Gresford, New South Wales. The arrangement of the façade pipes at Goondiwindi and Gresford is identical with that at the Anglican Church Grammar School, East Brisbane, where the Open Diapason stop was added in 1953.
The Whitehouse Bros organ of 1952
[Photographs by Trevor Bunning (November 2011)]
The instrument was overhauled in 1988 by Peter Jewkes of Sydney, who surmised at the time that it was possibly the last pneumatic action organ built in Australia.3 This is not quite true, as the Whitehouse firm was still building instruments with pneumatic action as late as 1957.
The Goondiwindi specification is as follows:
| MANUAL Open Diapason Gedact Viol di Gamba Octave PEDAL Bourdon COUPLERS Manual to Pedal Pedal to Manual [Super] Octave |
8 8 8 4 16 |
(mostly enclosed) |
Tremulant [disconnected before 1974]
Tubular-pneumatic action
Attached stop-key console
Compass: 61/30
Balanced swell pedal.4
Console of the Whitehouse Bros organ
[Photograph by Howard Baker (c.1995)]
____________________________________________________________________
1 Graham Todd, Holy Trinity Anglican Parish, Goondiwindi, 'The First 100 Years'1882-1982: A Centenary Commemorative (Goondiwindi: Argus, [1982]), pp. 8-9, 35-42.
2 Whitehouse Bros Ledger (1940-1954), p. 327.
3 Organ Society of Queensland Newsletter, vol. 16, no. 3 (December 1988), p. 34.
4 Specification noted by Howard Baker, c.1995, confirmed against details supplied to G. Cox by Walter Emerson, February 1974.