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History of the 1867 Holdich Organ in Hinckley United Reformed Church
The organ was built by the London organ builder, George Maidwell Holdich, to the design of H J Gauntlett, in 1867. It was originally built for the Union Chapel, Islington. When a new church was being designed to accommodate a growing congregation (1874-1877), the intention was to install the organ in the new building. However, Holdich is said to have objected to the proposed location of the organ and so it was removed and placed in storage for a short time.
The Borough Congregational Church, Hinckley (as the church was then known) purchased the instrument in 1878 for £600. It was installed at Hinckley by Holdich himself and originally located in the gallery. In 1903, at a further cost of £400, Nicholson & Lord of Walsall moved the organ to the front of the church. Some minor tonal modifications were made at this time. In 1961, the organ was refurbished by J W Walker & Son, then of Ruislip, Middlesex. In 1998 the organ was awarded an Historic Organ Certificate by the British Institute of Organ Studies after surveying the instrument, an Independent Organ Advisor said:
“This organ has two important claims to fame. Firstly, it is one of the few surviving instruments built directly to the specification of Dr H J Gauntlett… Secondly, it is probably the largest surviving work by G M Holdich, its maker” Most of the original Holdich pipework survives, as does some of the original mechanism along with the conservative work of Nicholson & Lord from 1903. W T Best gave a performance on the organ (when it was in Islington) at what is believed to be one of the first instances the term “organ recital” was used. The organ bears many of the hallmarks of Gauntlett’s design: fully developed diapason choruses on both swell and great (including tierce mixtures in both departments) as well as a full swell reed chorus. The organ is one of only two large Gauntlett-inspired instruments still in existence. Apart from some inappropriate (although fashionable at the time) alterations to the pedal action in 1961, there have been minimum modifications made to the instrument in its near 140-year history.
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H.J.Gauntlett wrote the tune for Once in Royal David’s City
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Henry John Gauntlett (1805-76)The designer of the Hinckley URC organ was the organist, organ designer, lawyer and author Henry John Gauntlett. He was very famous in 19th Century music circles being a close friend of Felix Mendelssohn.
Henry John Gauntlett was born on 9th July 1805 while his father, who was a clergyman, was serving as Curate at Wellington Shropshire. When his father moved to Olney, Buckinghamshire, in 1814, the young Gauntlett persuaded his father to appoint him as organist and within six months, being taught by his mother, he was proficient enough to take up the post.
Thomas Attwood, organist at St Paul’s Cathedral and a pupil of Mozart, wanted to appoint Gauntlett as his assistant. However, Gauntlett’s father discouraged his son from becoming a professional musician, believing they were subject to too many temptations of the flesh! Instead he became a lawyer and moved to London. In 1827 he took up the post as organist of St. Olave, Southwark and was concurrently the evening organist at Christ Church, Newgate Street from 1836.
Despite his career choice, Gauntlett remained a very influential figure in the organ world. As a result of his travels to Europe where he saw examples of the best organs on the Continent, he influenced English
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organ builders to build organs based on the so-called ‘German System’. He collaborated with the organ builder William Hill from the 1830’s through to 1860, standardising on the compass of the manuals, developing the pedal division and extending the principal manual choruses1. He had strong ideas on the tonal quality required of an organ to support congregational singing as well as being suitable for the music of the greatest composer for the instrument, J S Bach. Prior to this time, it was not possible to play the works of Bach on an English organ!
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Gauntlett edited The Musical World and later provided articles for various publications. In 1843 he was granted a Lambeth Doctorate by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, one of the first musicians since the Reformation to do so. From 1846 he devoted his whole time to music and was much in demand as a performer. Mendelssohn chose him to play the organ part in the first performance of “Elijah” in Birmingham Town Hall. He was organist at Union Chapel, Islington from 1853-1861, where the minister Dr Henry Allon, began a famous psalmody class. When Union Chapel was contemplating a new organ in 1867 they turned to their former organist and asked him to design the instrument. It was this organ that came to Hinckley in 1878.
Gauntlett was also organist at All Saints’, Notting Hill, 1861-63 and St Bartholomew-the-Less, Smithfield, 1872-76. A prolific hymn writer, it is said he wrote 10,000 hymn tunes, although this is somewhat doubtful. However, many of his hymn tunes survive and are still sung regularly in churches throughout the world, his most famous being the tune Irby sung to the Christmas carol Once in Royal David’s City.
Gauntlett died in London on February 21 1876.
1. For more information refer to The Making of the Victorian Organ by Nicholas Thistlethwaite, Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-66364-4
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George Maydwell Holdich (1816-96) George Holdich was born on 14th August 1816 to Thomas and Elizabeth (nee Maydwell) at Maidwell Hall, Northamptonshire. His father, Thomas, was rector of the parish church, St Mary the Virgin. Holdich attended Uppingham School from February 1829 until December 1832 after which it is said he went to Cambridge, although there is no record of this at the University.
It is understood that Holdich was intended to pursue a career in medicine. However, he became apprenticed to the organ builder James Chapman Bishop of Marylebone and in 1837 started up in business by himself. In 1842 he moved to share a factory with another organ builder, Henry Bevington at 12 Greek Street, Soho. Running off Greek Street is Manette Street, described in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities as “… where church organs claim to made…”
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The earliest Holdich organ still surviving is believed to be that in All Saints’ Laxton, Notts., the organ dating from c1843. Between 1848 and 1851 a fire destroyed the Greek Street factory and Holdich moved to 4 Judd Place East, New Road, King’s Cross, which was renumbered and renamed 42 Euston Road in 1858.
In 1851 Holdich built an organ for The Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace. 1861 saw Holdich build his magnum opus for Lichfield Cathedral – an organ of 52 stops. This organ was quite radical for its time, including a comprehensive pedal division of which the cathedral organist, Samuel Spofforth, observed ‘You may put them there, but I shall never use them!’ Sadly, little of this organ survives at Lichfield.
Holdich remained in the Euston Road factory until 1866 when the site was acquired by the Midland Railway Company, and so he moved to 24 Park Place West, Liverpool Road, again renumbered to become 261 Liverpool Road, Islington in 1869. It was from this factory that he built the Hinckley URC organ in 1867, although of course its original destination was much closer to home – Union Chapel, Islington. It was planned to move this organ to the new chapel, but Holdich seems to have objected to the proposed site. Holdich removed the organ and in 1878 installed it at the Borough Congregation Church, Hinckley.
Holdich built well over 400 organs during his career, including one for the English Cathedral on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, as well as instruments for South Africa Australia, New Zealand, India and Mauritius. His organs were generally conservative, certainly from a tonal perspective, but as indicated by the Lichfield instrument, at times he could also be forward-looking. While not as famous as the likes of Hill or Willis, Holdich nonetheless enjoys a reputation for building fine Victorian organs. Many of his smaller works survive, particularly in East Anglian rural churches.
Holdich retired on 10th January 1894 and his business was sold to the organ builder Eustace Ingram. The business traded from the same premises for a while under the name of Holdich & Ingram before being sold to Gray & Davison. On his retirement Holdich lived in a nursing home at Forest Hill where he died on the 30th July 1896 aged 79. He never married.
You can learn more about his work at Holdich Family History Society web site
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