St James' Anglican Church, Turramurra
[Photograph by Mark Quarmby (March 2007)]
Historical and Technical Documentation by Mark Quarmby
© OHTA 2014, 2016 (last updated December 2016)
The congregation of St James' Anglican Church began meeting on the present site in 1899. The present church, designed in English Gothic style by the architects Adam, Wright, and Apperly of Sydney, was opened on Saturday 27 September 1941.1
First Organ.
The first pipe organ for this church was built in 1941 by Whitehouse Bros of Brisbane. Their Ledger records the details as follows:
Dec 8 | Supplying and installing | £685 | |
1941 | new Pipe organ as | ||
spec & details 24/1/1941.2 |
The firm was engaged at this time in building several organs with electro-pneumatic action, including their 27-stop instrument for St Mary's Catholic Cathedral, Sydney, which was opened in March 1942,3 but the Turramurra instrument followed the traditional practice of the firm in using tubular-pneumatic action.4
S.T. Noad & Son later enlarged the Turramurra instrument, placing the additions on separate pneumatic chests. Some of the Whitehouse stops were subsequently incorporated into a new instrument for the church by Anthony Welby. Parts of Noad's console were later found in Welby's warehouse, when the contents were offered for sale following his death, and the original Whitehouse specification (apparently of 11 or 12 stops) can be deduced from the photograph below:
[Photographs by Trevor Bunning (October 2011)
Great Open Diapason Dulciana Hohl Flute Harmonic Flute Principal Fifteenth3 Swell Violin Diapason Echo Gamba Celeste Gedact Gemshorn Oboe Pedal Bourdon Bass Flute Couplers Swell to Pedals Great to Pedals Swell Sub Octave Swell Super Octave Swell to Great Swell to Great Super |
8 8 8 4 4 32 8 8 8 8 4 8 16 8 |
[added later by S.T. Noad & Son] [added later by S.T. Noad & Son]5 [Added by S.T. Noad & Son ?] |
Swell tremulant
Tubular-pneumatic action.
Present Organ.
In 1976, the church engaged Anthony Welby to replace the Whitehouse/Noad organ with a modern mechanical action organ with the following specification. A small number of stops were used from the previous organ. The Swell is located in the roof with the ceiling over the choir opening and serving as the swell shutters.
The 1976 Anthony Welby organ
[Photograph by Mark Quarmby (March 2007)]
After forty years of use, Peter D.G. Jewkes undertook cleaning and an overhaul of the instrument in 2016. The wind pressures were slightly raised at this time.7
Great Open Diapason Stopped Diapason Principal Flute Sesquialtera Mixture Swell Gedackt Salicional Gemshorn Chimney Flute Principal Quinte Scharf [Krummhorn] Trumpet Pedal Bourdon Principal Bass Flute Choral Bass Mixture Posaune Couplers Swell to Great Great to Pedal Swell to Pedal |
8 8 4 4 II IV 8 8 4 4 2 1-1/3 III [16] 8 16 8 8 4 III 16 |
[1976 Blockflute 2ft; transposed c.2000 Peter D.G. Jewkes]6 12.17 15.19.22.26 * * * * [prepared for] * * 19.22.26 |
Great & Pedal combinations coupled
Mechanical key action
Stop and Piston action: direct electric
Compass 56/30
* denotes stops from old organ
Pistons
4 to Swell
4 to Great
Setter
General Cancel
Toe Pistons
4 Generals
4 to Pedal
Reversible Great to Pedal
Reversible Pedal Posaune
2 levels of memory.8
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Swell open
Swell closed
[Photographs by Mark Quarmby (March 2007)]
The organ was converted into a 'hybrid' instrument in the latter part of 2016, with the addition of Hauptwerk stops, more than doubling its size.
The console following the Hauptwerk additions of 2016
[Photograph by Alan Caradus (October 2016)]
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1 The Sydney Morning Herald (11 March 1941), p. 3; The Sydney Morning Herald (27 September 1941), p. 15.
2 Whitehouse Bros Ledger (1940-54), p. 312, cited by Geoffrey Cox.
3 Robert Parkinson, 'The Organs of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney,' The Sydney Organ Journal, vol. 38, no. 3 (Winter 2007), p. 41.
4 Original action confirmed by Peter Jewkes, July 2016.
5 Information supplied by the church's organist, Andrew Davidson.
6 Information supplied by Peter Jewkes, July 2016.
7 [Peter Jewkes,] 'Off the Chest,' The Sydney Organ Journal, vol. 47, no. 4 (Spring 2016), p. 39. See also: Peter Jewkes, 'An Overhaul in Turramurra,' Organ Australia, issue 3/2016, pp. 40-41.
8 Peter Kneeshaw, 'An Organ in the Making,' The Sydney Organ Journal, vol. 8, no. 5 (May 1977), pp. 4-7; 'Organ Ramble and Recital,' The Sydney Organ Journal, vol. 15, no. 1 (February/March 1984), p. 4; Specification corrected by Mark Quarmby, March 2007.