| Name of institution |
Forrest Park Methodist Church |
| Type of institution |
Church |
| Street Address |
37 Walcott Street |
| City |
Mount Lawley |
| State |
Western Australia |
| Postcode |
|
| Country |
Australia |
| Name of building |
Forrest Park Methodist Church |
| Name of room |
|
| Dates of the building |
|
| Architect’s and builder’s names |
|
| Special architectural features |
|
| Special fittings |
|
| Other location information |
Church closed and the building is now a fine food restaurant |
| Name of contact |
|
| Mailing Address |
|
| Telephone |
|
| Email |
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| Other contact information |
|
| . |
|
| Previous organ(s) |
|
| Date of previous organ |
None |
| Detail of previous organ |
|
| Dates when key work has been undertaken |
|
| Dates of any moves that have taken place |
|
| Variations from original design of organ |
|
|
Information on previous organ |
|
|
Information about comparable instruments to previous organ |
|
| . |
|
| Present organ |
|
| Type of installation |
Organ chamber |
| Case description |
Grill facing in to the sanctuary of the Church and a simple false dummy
display facing into the church - these pipes were made of galvanised
iron down pipes with a simple stencilled pattern. |
| Placement in room |
South-West front corner of the church |
| Builder's name |
Gunstar Organ Works, Adelaide |
| Opus number |
|
| Date of completion/installation |
1940
Contract signed 10th July 1939 |
| Construction materials |
|
| Number of manuals |
Two (2)
|
| Key compasses |
|
| Number of keys |
|
| Key material |
|
| Pedal compass |
|
| Number of pedals |
|
| Pedalboard type |
|
| Pedalboard material |
|
| Type of chests |
|
| Type of key action |
Electro-pneumatic
|
| Type of stop action |
Electro-pneumatic
|
| Couplers |
Swell to Great, Great Octave,Great Sub
|
| Tremulants |
|
| Accessories |
|
| Console type |
|
| Stop label material |
|
| Placement |
|
| General design |
|
| Playing aids |
|
| Divisions |
|
| Wind pressures |
4.25 inches
|
| Stop list |
This
stoplist is made up from the recollection of Bob Elms and may not be
correctly named and may be incomplete. The organ was changed
considerably in the transition to the new premises at Maylands and many of the old specifcations were no longer decipherable:
| GREAT |
|
|
|
| Open Diapason |
8' |
|
|
| Claribel |
8' |
|
|
| Lieblich Gedeckt |
8' |
|
|
| Salicional |
8' |
(Swell) |
|
| Diapason |
4' |
|
|
| Lieblich Gedeckt |
4' |
(Swell) |
|
| Fifteenth |
2' |
|
|
| . |
|
|
|
| SWELL |
|
|
|
| Lieblich Gedeckt |
16' |
|
|
| Salicional |
8' |
|
|
| Gedeckt |
8' |
|
|
| Salicional |
4' |
|
|
| Gedeckt |
4' |
|
|
| Salicional |
2' |
|
|
Labial Oboe
Later Trumpet |
8' |
TC |
|
| . |
|
|
|
| PEDAL |
|
|
|
Bourdon
|
16' |
(Swell) |
|
| Subbass |
16' |
|
|
|
| Total number of speaking stops |
16
|
| Total number of ranks |
Five (5) extended ranks |
| Total number of pipes |
|
| Dates when key work has been undertaken on current
organ |
|
| Dates of any moves that have taken place to current
organ |
Rebuilt in 1960 by Paul F Hufner with a Cornopean installed from Davey Street Congregational Church, Hobart, for use as a Trumpet until it was later replaced with a new Trumpet rank.
Removed, rebuilt, enlarged and installed at Maylands Uniting Church in 1985 by Paul F. Hufner. |
| Information on current organ |
This was the only organ built in Western Australia by Gunstar
Organ Works, Adelaide. Gunstars were formed in 1935 and their
first new organ was the Christadelphian Church in Adelaide, the
contract states it was to be completed by 16th March 1936. It appears Dodd amalgamated with Gunstar Organ
Works in June 1944 and the company then became J.E. Dodd & Sons Gunstar Organ Works, Adelaide.
Paul Hufner signed a maintenance agreement with Gunstar
in February 1940 and maintained the organ until the 1990's, over 50
years.
The action was electro-pneumatic in stop and key action with the
primary action puffers which completed the electric circuit to the pipe
magnets. The stop action also worked with switches activated by
pneumatic puffers (Wurlitzer style). There were 5 ranks of pipes,
extended.
The Pedal Subbass 16' gave a fairly solid sound, and there was also a
Pedal Bourdon 16' borrowed from the Swell. The Subbass did
everything required of it but the swell stop which was of quite
small scale was inaudible from the body of the church and hence
the bottom 12 notes were taken out to allow for the addition of the
bottom 12 notes for the trumpet. |
| Comparable instruments to current
organ |
|
| Current status |
|
| Assessment of organ |
|
| Other organs by this builder |
|
| Photographs |
Photographs of the church from Picassos
Historical photo of church interior sources by Andrew Gardner
Photo of windows by Bruce Duncan
|
| Technical documents |
|
| General documents |
|
| . |
|
| Supporting information |
Bob Elms writes:
In 1941 I was a student of ES Craft at Wesley Church at the time and went
to a service to hear the organ played by Bill Arnott the
organist. It had
been installed in 1940 and ES Craft played the opening recital. It all
sounded very orchestral in tone to me, only a small 2' as upperwork and
that on the swell, and the ersatz reed on the swell a stringy Labial Oboe,
a larger version of the Salicional which only went to tenor C.. Olwyn Mason
became organist after Bill Arnott died suddenly. In 1954 she married Dr.
John Francis who lives in Albany now [2010], retired of course, and I took over
from her as organist. As the elderly choir master wanted to retire they
appointed me as organist/choirmaster, a post I held for 16 years.
I was
not completely happy with the organ as far as sound was concerned. I thought
the organ needed a bit more top; it depended on a great super coupler to
provide that and it was not very successful. I proposed that the Open
diapason/Octave diapason rank be extended to 2'. This was done with the
addition being gifted to the church by the Anderson family. John Larner's
mother was an Anderson and a lady in the choir Hetty Cooves, his aunt, was
also, and so the job was done. Paul Hufner did the job.
Then a second
hand Wm HIll trumpet of about 1890 became available through Paul Hufner. It
came from Davey Street Congregational Church, a church in Tasmania whose organ Paul
had rebuilt. Paul
suggested we try it in the footholes of the Labial Oboe to see how it went.
The result was dramatic and the church
bought a new Trumpet rank from Rogers
in the UK. It still only went to tenor C however. In the swell box was a 16
foot bourdon of very small scale which actually was inaudible from the nave
of the church. It was a downward extension to the Lieblich gedecht. Paul
suggested we buy the twelve 8 foot pipes for the bass of the trumpet and
substitute them for the bottom octave of the swell bourdon. That would only
need some wiring. This was done and the reed rank was complete.
Gunns only
had the one job in this state before they amalgamated with JE Dodd under
the name JE Dodd and Sons Gunstar Organ Works. Incidentally the 12 swell bourdon
pipes were gifted to Morley Methodist Church to supply a pedal 16' for the
organ Larner built there. The Bourdon now is in the organ at private residence Kingsley Jones, Kardinya.
The
Gunns, Steve and Gordon I met a few times. Their main man was Lyall von
Einem who carried out much of their work in WA. He carried off my
assistant organist, Joan Plank, in matrimony and took her back to SA.
Frank Dawson became my assistant after that and carried on as
organist/choirmaster after I left for Albany in 1971. I was
organist/choirmaster at Forrest Park for 16 years. There were for some
years two choirs, a large and strong choir in the morning, and one of
only slightly lesser size and skill for the evening. How times have
changed.
The Forrrest Park organ itself was in a purpose built chamber
(Wurlitzer style) about 12 feet above the floor of the minister's
vestry (to left of the choir and console). There was no screen across
the opening - just a large fabric curtain obviously designed to
stop the setting sun shining through the rear stained glass windows and
the organ chamber openings onto the pipe work.
Unfortunately it also cut back the sound and the high frequencies to a
noticeable degree and on Sunday mornings I climbed the ladder and
pulled the curtain back to let more sound out. I did discuss with Paul
Hufner the possibility of replacing the curtain with an extruded
aluminium screen but the western sun posed a problem and we did not do
anything about it. Access to the loft was by a steep ladder from the
floor of the minister's vestry. The blower was in a cellar underneath
the choir and some distance from the console. The blower's intake was
just above a lush green lawn, which did nothing for the organ's tuning
on a hot summer's morning.
The console was centrally situated in front of the choir, with the
organist's back to the congregation. and facing the choir much as in
Trinity bbut elevated so that the organist was well in view theatre
organ style... The console was on rollers. If more space
was required for the choir (e.g. Sunday School Anniversaries) a rail
was removed and the organ console wheeled out as far as the
communion rail. It was not moved very often but even I could roll it
out without assistance.There was a long cable under the floor of
the choir.
The 2' extension to the Open Diapason would have been around 1957 to
1960. I have no record of the actual date but I got it done as soon as
I could. The 1862 Wm Hill Trumpet on the swell was definitely tried
out in 1961 and then replaced almost immediately by the new rank
mentioned earlier.
The 1862 rank came from Davey Street Congregational Church Hobart, now
closed, that organ being moved to the Hutchens School Sandy Bay where
it is still in use. Paul had the Hill Trumpet refurbished and
used in the Great organ of St John's Lutheran Church, Aberdeen Street, Perth. Not many of his organs had trumpets.
That is how the Gunstar organ at Mt Lawley was when I left in 1971. The
organists were Frank Dawson, a Dutchman named Hank Vonk and for a time
Ron Dickson a distant cousin of mine. Not the Dr Ron Dickinson from the
Christian Science Church. |
| . |
|
| Document control |
Original entries J R Elms, OAM,
Gazetteer of Western Australian Pipe Organs, 1971, 1999,2003 and 2004.
This entry D B Duncan 26 January 2009.
Additional information from Bob Elms 14 February 2009.
Additional information from George Stephens, Bob Elms and Patrick Elms 20 July 2010.
Updated with new photographs 13 August 2018.
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