Cromwell College Chapel, St Lucia
[Photograph by David Vann (May 2012)]
Cromwell College Chapel, St Lucia
[Photograph by David Vann (May 2012)]
Historical and Technical Documentation by Geoffrey Cox
© OHTA 2012 (last updated May 2012)
Cromwell College was founded by the Congregational Churches in Queensland, and opened in June 1954. It is named in honour of Oliver Cromwell, sometime Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, and was the first of the colleges on the St Lucia campus of the University of Queensland.1 The Chapel is named in memory of Revd Edward Griffith, the first Congregational minister in the Moreton Bay district, and his children.
Plaque in honour of Revd Edward Griffith and his children
Cromwell College Chapel, St Lucia
[Photograph by David Vann (May 2012)]
The organ in the Griffith Memorial Chapel of Cromwell College was built by Whitehouse Bros of Brisbane in 1955 at a cost of £2,670.8.6.2 A plaque nearby honours the memory of Lenore Jarvis, who was chapel organist (1954-77) as well as organist of the City Congregational Church for much of the same period.3
Plaque in honour of Lenore Jarvis
Cromwell College Chapel, St Lucia
[Photograph by David Vann (May 2012)]
The organ is located in the rear gallery of the chapel, which was of insufficient height to accommodate the instrument. Additional vertical space has been created, although the tops of the façade pipes are obscured from the body of the chapel.
The 1955 Whitehouse Bros organ in
Cromwell College Chapel, St Lucia
[Photograph by David Vann (May 2012)]
Along with their organs at St Paul's Anglican Church, Ashgrove (1955), Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Mackay (1956) and at St Finbarr's Catholic Church, Ashgrove (1957), this was one of the last pneumatic-action organs built by the Whitehouse firm, and one of the last such instruments built in Australia. The specification reflected the practice of the firm dating from the early 1910s onwards, except that it is the Gedact stop here that is duplexed from the Swell to the Great, rather than the Salicional.
| GREAT Open Diapason Gedact Flute SWELL Gedact Salicional Dulcet Oboe PEDAL Bourdon COUPLERS Swell to Great Swell to Pedal Great to Pedal Swell to Great Sub Oct Swell to Great Super Oct |
8 8 4 8 8 4 8 16 |
[from Swell] |
[Swell] Tremulant
Balanced swell pedal
Tubular-pneumatic action
Compass: 61/30.14
Console details of the 1955 Whitehouse Bros organ
Cromwell College Chapel, St Lucia
[Photographs by David Vann (May 2012)]
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1 'History of the College and College Buildings' at http://www.cromwell.uq.edu.au - accessed January 2012.
2 Whitehouse Bros List.
3 David Vann, 'History of the City Congregational Church Organs' [pamphlet] (Brisbane: City Congregational Church, c.1973).
4 Specification noted by G. Cox, 2009.