Robert Hope-Jones
Two or three years later he simultaneously held a similar office at St Luke's Church, Tranmere, where he trained a boy choir that became widely celebrated.
He erected an organ in the Claughton Music Hall and organised and conducted oratorio performances in aid of various church funds, training a large voluntary chorus and orchestra for the purpose.
The improved electric action, movable console and many other matters destined to startle the organ world, were devised and made by him there, after the day's business and the evening's choir rehearsals.
After going through practical training in the various workshops and the drawing office, he then secured appointment as chief electrician of the Lancashire and Cheshire (afterwards the National) Telephone Company.
[2] About 1889, he resigned from the telephone company to devote himself to improving the church organ, a subject which had occupied much of his spare time for years.
For nearly twenty years he met concerted opposition – attacks in turn against his electrical knowledge, musical taste, voicing ability, financial standing, and personal character.
[4] His very sudden removal to the United States was to avoid prosecution when his partner, Eustace Ingram, discovered him in flagrante delicto at the Hereford factory with a boy.
[5] In the year 1895, what was practically the first Hope-Jones electric organ sold was set up in St George's Church, Hanover Square, London.
With curious promptitude, attention was directed to "the danger of allowing amateurs to make crude efforts at organ-building in valuable and historic churches, and to the great risk of electric actions".
[2] About the same time, a gimlet was forced through the electric cable of a Hope-Jones organ at St Mary's Church, Hendon, London.
[2] At the Auditorium, Ocean Grove, New Jersey, an effort was made to cripple the new Hope-Jones organ, shortly before one of the opening recitals in 1908.
Organs built on the St John's model were ordered for the United States (Taunton, Mass., and Baltimore, Maryland), for India, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, France, Germany, Malta, and for numbers of English cathedrals, churches, town halls, etc.
[2] Among his innovations in the field of organ design were improvements to electro-pneumatic action and the invention of such stops as the Diaphone and the modern Tibia Clausa with its strong 8-foot (2.4 m) flute tone.
Hope-Jones organs were also noted for such innovations as stoptabs instead of drawknobs, and very high wind pressures of 10–50 in (250–1,270 mm) to imitate orchestral instruments.
[8] With a background in telephone engineering, Hope-Jones brought electrification of the organ to a degree of refinement, first applying many of his ideas to instruments intended for churches or concert halls.
Other features characteristic of the theatre organ in which Hope-Jones played a pioneering role were the installation of various sets of pipes in separate recesses below or adjacent to the stage, thus achieving a primitive stereophonic effect; the placement of all divisions under expression, that is, enclosing all pipes in sound-tight boxes (often built of concrete) with pedal-controlled shutters, permitting wide variations in loudness; richer and deeper tremolo effects than were customary in church or concert instruments; high-powered centrifugal blowers capable of providing adequate wind for pipes voiced at 10 or more inches of water; tuned percussions such as marimba, xylophone, harp, glockenspiel, and cathedral chimes; bass, kettle, and snare drums, gongs, tambourine, castanets, and cymbals; "toy counter" effects for use in accompanying silent films, including doorbell, bird call, auto horn, sleigh bells, train whistle, thunder, and galloping hooves; and even a grand piano.
Working in connection with the Skinner Company, Hope-Jones constructed and placed a fine organ in Park Church, Elmira, New York, erected in memory of Thomas K. Beecher.
[10] The patents and plant of the Elmira concern were acquired by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company in April 1910, and Hope-Jones entered its employ, with headquarters at its mammoth factory at North Tonawanda, New York, continuing to carry on the business under his own name.
[12] In August 1895 in St Nicholas's Church, Leeds, Kent, England, Hope-Jones married Cecil Laurence, a musical member of one of the leading families of Maidstone.
In 1914, Hope-Jones committed suicide, age 55, by inhaling gas fumes in a hotel in Rochester, New York, some months after leaving the Wurlitzer company.
[17] Another fully preserved Hope Jones organ is his Opus 2 at the First Universalist Church in Rochester, New York, which has been described as sounding "weighty and lush", with large-scaled 8-foot (2.4 m) stops.
