Untold Stories
UNTOLD STORIES
175 years is a lot of history to look back on in our upcoming anniversary book, Untold Stories, and when some didn't quite make the cut, we thought we would share them here! From Telford of Dublin to Nicholson of Malvern: the story of the organ ‘Telford is utterly amazed at its stupendous power and says there is nothing like it anywhere that he has been. He has heard several organs lately in England, and they all seem to him to be thin and hungry compared with this. In fact ours sounds very glorious.’ Singleton An essential adjunct for sacred music was a pipe organ. In 1847, there was a growing demand by churches for new or re-furbished organs. Sewell and Singleton were absolutely determined that Radley should not only have an organ but that it should be one of the finest that could be constructed. Singleton commissioned Telford’s of Dublin to build an organ at a cost of £2000, considerably more than the original estimate for the chapel itself. It was installed in 1848 after it had been demonstrated to large crowds in Dublin. Telford regarded it as his best work to date, and he arranged for it to be shipped back to Dublin for the 1853 Exhibition at his own expense. In essence, this instrument survived until 1938, but it grew and grew, aided and abetted by George Wharton, who began to expand the organ almost by stealth, encouraging donations of individual stops. It quickly expanded to four manuals and sixty
stops – a staggering number for the size of the building – and even to five manuals by 1883, making it significantly bigger than most cathedral organs of the time. In 1889, it was converted to run powered by a Crossley gas engine - having previously been operated by a chapel servitor pumping the bellows. When the new Chapel was built in 1895, the organ was transferred largely unaltered. Sir Thomas Jackson designed a new case, occupying much of the west gallery, but the opportunity was not taken to carry out a full overhaul and the reliability of the organ gave concern almost immediately. In 1939, Rushworth & Dreaper were engaged to build a new instrument. Some of the old stops were retained, including the pedal 32’, although the latter was hugely disadvantaged by being placed underneath the new gallery seating, where the longest pipes had to be reduced in length by a process known as Haskelling. The remainder was placed in two chambers, one cutting into the southwest corner of Chapel Quad, and the other facing towards G Social. Radley has been graced by many fine musicians over the years, but the appearance behind this organ of Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1953 was one of the highlights. The enormous frame of the 80-year-old composer perched awkwardly on the organ bench and, to the delight of the choir crowding round, tootled at the console. But then, in his earlier days, he had been a church organist.
Left: Telford’s organ in Radley’s original Chapel, 1860s. Right: Nicholson’s organ newly installed in Chapel, 2021.
78
the old radleian 2021
