St Thomas' Lutheran Church,
cnr Stockwell & Duck Ponds Rds, Stockwell

B c.1850 J.C.A. Kruger for Bethany Lutheran Church;
installed & enlarged present location 1929 J.E. Dodd;
restored 1981 Roger Jones; missing pipework replaced 1987 Roger Jones.
1 manual, 7 speaking stops, 1 coupler, tracker. Man: 8.8.8.4.4.2. Ped: 16.

Recordings

John Stiller plays:

J S Bach - Prelude in A major

From Historic Organs of the Barossa Valley Volume 1 (1995) CD booklet:

Johann Carl August Krüger was born near Berlin in 1814 and migrated to South Australia in 1848. He only lived in SA for a couple of years before moving to Victoria. It appears that he built two organs when in SA but only this organ survives. The pipework may have been built by him, his metal pipes possibly being the first made in SA.

This organ was built c. 1850 and it was originally located in the west end gallery of Herberge Christi Lutheran Church, Bethany. While there it had a peadlboard and a pedal stop of 8' pitch was added to it as well as some repair work in 1880 and 1899. The organ was moved to St Thomas' Lutheran Church, Stockwell in 1928/9 and various alterations were made to it by the Adelaide organbuilder J E Dodd at this time. These changes included the transposition of the pitch one semitone lower and the changing of the 8' pedal stop to 16'. By 1980 deterioration had made the instrument virtually unplayable. It was restored by Roger Jones in 1982 and its tonal excellence has been revived.

The organ consists of a single manual of four octaves and a pedalboard of one stop.

 

The specification comes from the 1986 OHTA Conference booklet.

Manual Open Diapason Gedact Viol di Gamba Principal Flute Fifteenth Pedal Bourdon

8 8 8 4 4 2 16

(gvd) (spare slide)

Compass 49/30

location in west gallery



Restored specification (1982 Roger Jones) from CD booklet:

Manual Prinzipal Holzgedact Salicional Octave Spitzflöte Superoktave Pedal Subbass

8 8 8 4 4 2 16

(gvd) TC (provided R Jones 1982 on spare/separate slide) added 1929 J E Dodd

Pedal Coppel

From the 2009 OHTA Conference Book, David Shield writes:

 

The organ at Stockwell came from Bethany but its provenance is not absolute.  Comparison with an instrument now in the museum at Tanunda probably confirms that the same builder, J.C.A. Krüger, an early settler of the Western District of Victoria, who resided briefly in South Australia, made it.  The Lutheran church of St Thomas, the doubting apostle, acquired the organ in 1938.

 

Stockwell was a thriving township until the main road bi-passed it in 1885.  A resting place on the stock route, by 1856 it had two stores with a third in 1875.  In 1857 came a post office and the Stockwell Inn.  In 1882, a maternity hospital was opened serving its purpose until 1939 when the Angaston hospital opened.¹  The town itself had resulted from the sale of a subdivision of land in April 1854 owned by Samuel Stockwell, an English migrant butcher and colt breaker.  The previous year he had purchased land near the creek to erect a steam mill, completed, in 1854 by J. Kunoth and Edward Clements.²

 

The first church serving the settlers was also a Christian school situated to the north-east of the town.  The Salem congregation, which had used the building for worship each Wednesday evening and Sundays since 1856, finally outgrew the facility.  Only 11 feet wide and 42 feet long (3.36m x 12.8m), with additional rooms on the southern end used for residential purposes, it was no longer adequate.  In Pastor Hossfeld’s words, “the little clay church became dilapidated under the growing tooth of time and the necessity of a new church made itself felt more and more.”³  Thus the decision to build the current church in 1903.

 

Some doubt had apparently been expressed as to whether a church would be built in Stockwell and, as folklore has it, that led to the naming of the church.⁴  The doubts were unfounded for on 7 August 1904 the church of St Thomas was dedicated.  With a vestry added to the rear, the church itself was 45 feet in length, 35 feet wide, with walls 14 ½ feet high (13.73m x 10.68m x 4.42m) to accommodate 250 persons.

 

25 years later preparations were being made to celebrate the occasion.  Decisions were made to build a tower, provide new furnishings of altar, pulpit and lectern, and repaint the interior.  The Boer family who now owned the mill presented a new bell poured in Bochum Germany (Tone E Measurements 30” x 23”).  The day of celebration was to be Sunday 10 August 1929.  Although earlier histories suggest the organ came from Bethany at this time,⁵ there is no mention of it.  In fact, it was to be the congregation’s next project, realised nine years later with a dedication on 12 June 1938.

 

J.E. Dodd had acquired the organ from Bethany in 1929 as part payment for the installation of their new instrument.  He allowed £75 for it.  Though much has been written, its origins are obscure⁶.  From comparison with another instrument, now in the museum at Tanunda, it is acknowledged to be the work of J.C.A. Krüger prior to his leaving for Western Victoria in May 1855.  The earliest records of it being located at Bethany come from financial records that indicate it was subject to frequent repair from as early as 1861.  By 1928 the Bethany congregation opted to purchase a new instrument rather than persevere with the repair of the old.

 

Krüger had arrived in 1848, the year that Pastor Meyer was called to assist Frietszche at Bethany.  Listed as an organist and organbuilder, with wife and four children, it has been generally accepted that Krüger settled at Hoffnungstahl in the Hundred of Barossa.  Surprisingly, perhaps, he did not seem to have owned any land.  In 1851 the District Road Board for the Hundred of Barossa charged a levy on the basis of the acreages held including those of the Germans at Hoffnungstahl for the purpose of road construction.  Krüger’s name is not listed⁷  On the basis of a questionable pasturage licence issued for the year ending 31 March 1851, he is said to have settled down to farming.  The licence was to pasture 172 cattle on government land in the Hundred of Moorooroo to the north, and was issued in the name of Kreiger.⁸  For an organist with a young family it seems a tall order to take on the vocation of a herdsman for so many cattle and still find time to construct one if not two pipe organs.⁹  Even the family history indicates his being a small farmer to be more appropriate.  He “would have started from scratch, building a home, clearing the land and building fences to keep stock from straying.”  On moving to Victoria he developed an interest in wool production and had 48 partly cultivated acres at Lake Linlithgow.¹⁰  Here he is acknowledged to have built an organ for Hochkirch that is now located at the museum in Tanunda.¹¹

 

By comparison of Stockwell to Hochkirch, Stiller concluded the organs shared the same builder.  Similarities were to be found in all areas of pipework, action, soundboard, console and case.  Most of the differences were attributed to Dodd’s alterations in 1929.

 

In the first place the general design of the case is similar though the display pipe grouping diverges slightly with flats of 7:7:7 and 7:9:7.  The mouth formation of the metal pipes, shape of wooden pipe stoppers, and workmanship of wooden pipe mouths, is exactly the same.  In either instrument ears are not present on open cylindrical pipes and the wooden pipes are not racked.  The action, rollers, roller bearings, roller arms, and backfalls, share the same shape and design.  Both organs have soundboards without bottom boards, and both have a clamp which contained a Viola di Gamba 8.  Both organs have a compass of 49 notes C-c³.  Stiller found difference in roller board frame shape, construction of the bellows and symmetry of soundboards.  Stop action varied between the two organs as did the shape of keyboard cheeks, style of stopknob, and lettering of stop labels.  The organ benches also differed in style.  His conclusion was that the organ at Stockwell was definitely built by Krüger.¹²

 

Over its lifetime, the organ has received a great deal of attention.  Early records indicate the organ at Bethany required much repair although what form that took is unknown.  The financial records show expenses for 1861, 1864, and 1867.  Daniel Lemke carried out further repairs in 1874 and 1875, and in February 1879 he gave it an overhaul that required 11 days.  There is evidence that Rendall may have also undertaken some work in 1885 as his name is scratched on the lead weight of the keyboard with that date.¹³  Theo Geyer also undertook repair work in 1899 and Stiller suggests it was he who added the pedal-board.¹⁴

 

Stiller also noted that the pitch of the organ had been lowered.  In 1918 the old organ was again thoroughly repaired and of course renovated before coming to Stockwell in 1938.¹⁵  Assuming Dodd lowered the pitch, this work may have been done by him at either time.  From at least 1912, Dodd’s instruments were pitched to the New Philharmonic standard, see, for example, Parkside Baptist Church, though the work is more likely to have been undertaken, as also the stop knobs, with the renovations of 1929.

 

By 1947 the organ was still being pumped by hand and the fee for pumping was raised to 1/-.  Because it was too expensive to purchase, an electric blower was constructed and installed by members of the congregation the following year.  In 1952 the organ was again in need of repair and the Dodd firm  was asked to “have a look at it”.  After extensive repairs in 1960 by L S. Waters costing £375, “the organ was again in fine tune”.16

 

By 1980, the organ was again in a state of disrepair.  Rather than see the organ destroyed John Stiller prevailed upon the Church authorities to have it restored.  Roger Jones undertook the work for a cost of $3,500, and the organ was rededicated on 7 March 1982.  The pipework and casework were restored with a Lutheran emblem carved to fit the new central pipeshade.  Previously anglicised, possibly by Dodd, the stopknobs were engraved in German with German script.  The pedal Bourdon remained pneumatic (with mechanical manual to pedal coupling.).  Wind pressure was reduced from 2 ⅞” to 2 ½ inches.   The pipework for the Viol di Gamba was missing in 1979 giving a spare slide.  In memory of Mrs Gladys Bartsch, organist for 50 years, Jones added a new 8’Salicional rank in 1982.¹⁷

J.C.A. Krüger c.1850

1 manual and pedal, 7 speaking stops, mechanical and pneumatic action

 

The first specification shows the stop names recorded by John Stiller before the 1982 restoration:

 

MANUAL
Open Diapason	8	gvd
Gedact	8
Viol di Gamba	8	(spare slide)
Principal	4
Flute	4
Fifteenth	2
PEDAL
Bourdon	16

Compass 49/30

Attached console

Location: west gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second specification shows the stop names following the 1982 restoration:

 

MANUAL
Prinzipal	8	gvd.bass
Holzgedact	8
Salicional	8	TC (provided R Jones 1982 on spare slide)
Octave	4
Spitzflöte	4
Superoktave	2
PEDAL
Subbass	16	added 1929 J.E. Dodd
Pedal Coppel

 

 

 

 

1  St Thomas Lutheran Church Stockwell Celebrating the 100^th Anniversary Sunday 8 August 2004, pp.5-7

 

2  The surname is inserted here, as there may be a connection with the organ at Rosedale, which see.

 

3  Evangelical Lutheran St Thomas Church of Stockwell Jubilee 1904-1954 November 14^th 1954, .p8

 

4  Ibid., p.9

 

5  Kudinoff, M., ‘Pioneer organ in the Barossa Valley, S.A’, OHTA News vol 5, no 4 (October 1981), p.7

 

6  see also section on Herberge Christi Church at Bethany.

 

7  South Australian Government Gazette, 1 May 1851, pp.315-316

 

8  Ibid.; Adelaide Times, 11 May 1850; Register, 11 May 1850, p. 3.3/4

 

9  It is said that Krüger made an organ for Hoffnungstahl that was moved to St Jacobi Lyndoch, and was acquired by Theo Geyer in 1930.  Nothing more is known and this information relies on an old man’s memories published in 1938.  Jurs Memoirs, Kirchen Blatt, 22 August 1938, p.264

 

10  Johann Carl August Krüger and his Descendants in Australia 1848-1980 (1981), pp.11, 13

 

11  For details see section on the Krüger organ at the Tanunda museum

 

12  Stiller, J., Documentation St Thomas Lutheran Stockwell 22 December 1978, 23 March 1979,10 January 1980

 

13 Noted by Lutz, M., The Work Praises The Man (1996), p.6.  The extension of bass pipes and pedal clavier to the organ after 1929 can hardly be attributed to Rendall.  His last organ in South Australia before moving to NSW was built for G.S. Hale that same year, 1885.  See also: Marananga.

 

14  On the back of the music desk is the pencilled inscription “Repaired April 1899 TG”.  Stiller, J, op cit, p.2.  Dodd may have added the pneumatic action

 

15  150th Anniversary of Herberge Christi Congregation and Settlement of Bethany 15 March 1992, p.14.  On the assumption that Dodd undertook the repair, the firm’s records for the period are missing so no details are known

 

16  St Thomas Church Stockwell Celebrating the 100^th Anniversary Sunday August 8 2004, pp.29, 30, 32.  There appears to be some confusion as to dates.  Dodd aged 95 had died on 30 January 1952.  All records from Waters have been destroyed so what was undertaken is unknown.

 

17  Kudinoff, M., op.cit., pp.7-11, 14, 15; memorial to Gladys Bartsch noted 2009.

 

 

Photos: Trevor Bunning (March 2009)