St Andrew's Anglican Church, Pittsworth
[Photograph by Howard Baker (1990s)]
St Andrew's Anglican Church, Pittsworth
[Photograph by Howard Baker (1990s)]
Historical and Technical Documentation by Geoffrey Cox
© OHTA 2011 (last updated November 2011)
Situated on the Darling Downs just off the Gore Highway some 40 kilometres south-west of Toowoomba, the rural town of Pittsworth was originally called 'Beauaraba', deriving from the pastoral station of that name. The name was changed formally to Pittsworth in 1915. The town is noted for its cheeses, and also for its flowering Silky Oak and Jacaranda trees during Spring.
The foundation stone of the present St Andrew's Church was laid on 3 November 1912, and the building was consecrated on 7 October 1913.1 It replaced an earlier building designed by the prominent Toowoomba architect John Marks in 1888-89.2
The foundations of the new St Andrew's Church, Pittsworth
being laid in front of the old church in 1912
[Photograph: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland]
The organ was built in 1928 by Whitehouse Bros of Brisbane at a cost of £375.3 A single-manual pneumatic-action instrument without pedals, it originally comprised only five stops. Unlike the single-manual pneumatic-action organs built by the firm at St Augustine's Anglican Church, Hamilton (1918) and Zion Lutheran Church, Minden (1931), this one did not include the 'melodic bass' devise.
The 1928 Whitehouse Bros organ
in St Andrew's Anglican Church, Pittsworth
[Photographs by Howard Baker (1990s)]
All of the pipework is enclosed in the swell box apart from the lower pipes of the Open Diapason 8ft and the Double Diapason 16ft. Two further stops (Geigen Principal 4ft and Oboe 8ft) were added in 1973 by Walter Emerson of Toowoomba, who removed the Open Diapason entirely from the swell box, and extended it to provide the Geigen Principal 4ft.4
Console of the 1928 Whitehouse Bros organ
[Photograph by Howard Baker (1990s)]
| MANUAL Double Diapason Open Diapason Gedact Salicional Geigen Principal Dulcet Oboe COUPLER Manual Octave |
16 8 8 8 4 4 8 |
A A |
[wood] [1973] [1973] |
No pedals
Compass: 58 notes
Tubular-pneumatic action
Balanced swell pedal.5
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1 Glenda Murrell, Anglican Records and Archive Centre Guide to Records (DioceseofBrisbaneWeb, 2001) - cited January 2004.
2 Donald Watson & Judith McKay, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century: A Biographical Dictionary (Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994), pp. 121-23.
3 Whitehouse Bros List gives "New 1928 £375". Whitehouse Bros Ledger (1922-1940), p. 352, shows payments up to March 1929.
4 Personal communication from Walter Emerson to G. Cox, February 1974.
5 Collected Organ Specifications of Bernie Brohan (c.1952); Additional details as cited above, and confirmed by Howard Baker, 1990s.