St Peter's Anglican Church
Queen Street, Mornington
Built: 1954 Hill, Norman & Beard (o/n V289); 2 manual; 12 speaking stops.
Enlarged: 1972 by Laurie Pipe Organs to 15 stops.
Enlarged: 1997/98 by SJ Laurie to 21 stops.
Gt: 8.8.8.4.2-2/3.2.II. Sw: 8.8.8.4.2.8.4. Ped: 16.8.8.4.16.8.4.
St Peter's Anglican Church, Mornington, 2017 (Tony Love)
St Peter's Mornington Organ 2017 (Tony Love)
The organ in St Peter's Anglican Church, Mornington was ordered in October 1951 from the Melbourne factory of Hill, Norman & Beard following receipt of an initial gift of £1,500 from Clive Fairbairn, a wealthy landowner and a warden at St Peter's, who also promised to cover the balance required after the contract was signed. The balance, £3,500, was provided after Mr Fairbairn sold a prize bull from his farm near Holbrook. The contract was signed on 14 July 1952.
A delay then occurred while the ceiling and floor of the Vicar's Vestry were prepared in accordance with the requirements of the organ builder and installation began in 1954. It was completed ready for dedication on 12 December 1954.
The specification was designed by Bill Brodie, Manager of the Melbourne branch of Hill, Norman & Beard at that time and it was installed as a small two manual and pedal instrument having four ranks on the Great, five on the Swell and a Bourdon 16' extended to 8' and 4' on the Pedal. It was built as a genetically unbalanced instrument with a powerful Open Diapason 8' and Octave 4' on the Great and a strongly voiced Trompette 8' on the Swell which swamped the other stops in the specification. The vicar at that time, Revd Hall, wrote that Mr Brodie had told him the Trompette pipes were made for St John's Anglican Church in Camberwell, but they were not ready for their installation so they were put into the St Peter's organ.
The console as supplied in 1954 (St Peter's Archive Photo)
The spotted metal façade pipes are believed to have been made by Harry Marriner, foreman for the Hill, Norman & Beard pipe making section and a parishioner at St Peter's. It is also believed that although the design of the façade was that of Hill, Norman & Beard it was built by one of St Peter's wardens – Arthur Smith – who cut up two front pews to obtain the timber used in its construction.
As designed the organ was skillfully built with space allowed for future additions to be made to the Great organ and for the Swell box to be enlarged so stops could also be added if required.
Planning for such an enlargement began in 1966 when the organist, Robert Heatley, an apprentice with organ builder Steve Laurie at that time, proposed the addition of three stops to "complete the tonal design of the instrument". This lead to fund raising by the congregation and ultimately, in 1972, to the addition of a Quint 2⅔, Fifteenth 2 and Mixture II being added to the Great, as recommended by Steve Laurie.
Further fund raising by the congregation took place in 1986 and the existing HN&B electro-pneumatic system was replaced with a solid state diode logic stop system and the number of Divisional Pistons was increased from three to four on Great, Swell and Pedal, and two General pistons and a Swell Octave to Pedal were added.
The console with stops added in 1972 and pistons added in 1985
(St Peter's archive photo)
The additions completed in 1973 improved the tonal balance of the organ and made it a generally better sounding instrument for both hymn accompaniment and everything else but these additions had made it a "top heavy" instrument that was still not well balanced. It needed a stronger Pedal.
To make this possible the organist Tony Love began discussions with Steve Laurie in 1996 with the intention of funding the installation of a 16' pedal reed stop. Steve advised that space would not permit a separate 16' rank but that by enlarging the Swell box and placing the existing Trompette 8' on a unit chest and adding 12 new pipes at 16' pitch on a new chest placed at the rear of the Swell box, and by adding 12 new top octave pipes to the existing the 8' rank the Trompette could be made playable at 16', 8' and 4' pitches on the Pedal and playable at 8' and 4' pitch on the Swell. As a further addition Steve proposed that the sound board space vacated by the Trompette 8' at the front of the swell box could be used for the installation of a new 2' rank which would improve the balance and versatility of the Swell.
The enlargement of the Swell box began in May 1997 following the receipt of appropriate funds from Tony Love and when that work was completed Tony provided the funding to have the new 16' Trompette pipes and the pipes for the Trompette 4' top octave made by Tim Gilley. The pipes for the new Swell Fifteenth 2' were also made by Tim Gilley and this rank was funded by the congregation. To complete the project the console was then modified to accommodate the additional stop tabs and remained without further changes until 2015.
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Steve Laurie with the 16ft Trompette pipes made by Tim Gilley
in the SJ Laurie factory (Photo: Tony Love)
The organ console following the additions made in 1997/98 (Photo: Unknown)
By 2013 the solid state stop and piston system had become unreliable and the congregation were advised what cost might be required to rectify this situation. As a result of this a member of the congregation, Neil Taylor, offered to pay for the work required as a memorial to his wife who died in 2013.
The preferred approach resulted in a Peterson ICS-4000 computer system being installed and the console rebuilt as a draw-stop console with 8 additional general thumb pistons and additional toe pistons and thumb pistons associated with the sequencer system which was made possible with the installation of the Peterson computer.
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The stop tab console in 2015 prior to its rebuilding
(Photo: Campbell Hargraves)
The Drawstop console built by Campbell Hargraves in 2015. (Photo: Tony Love)
Great |
8 8 8 4 2-2/3 2 II 8 8 8 8 4 2 8 4 16 8 8 4 16 8 4 |
C B B A C A A B B B |
added 1972 added 1972 added 1972 added 1997 added 1997/8 added 1997 added 1998 added 1997 added 1997 |
St Peter's Mornington interior in 2017 (Photo: Tony Love)
(Information provided by Tony Love, author of "Architecture, Art and Music at St Peter's Anglican Church in Mornington 1861-2011.)