J. E. DODD - A ROMANTIC ORGANBUILDER
by Bruce Naylor
Contents Life and work
Representative organs
List of contracts
References
This article is based upon a talk given at the 0HTA Conference in Adelaide on 30 August, 1980.
Josiah Eustace Dodd, organbuilder, was born in Richmond, Melbourne in 1856, died aged 95 years in 1952 and is buried in St Jude's Brighton Cemetery, South Australia. His mother was Irish, his father a Londoner and he married a Scottish wife (1).
At the age of 13 he became an apprentice with the firm of Fincham at the princely sum of 2/6 per week (2). It was a great firm and Dodd with his ability and perseverance became a very good tradesman, so much so that when the firm set up here in Adelaide in 1881, Dodd came as co-manager and took over full control in 1888 (3). Both Dodd boys became organbuilders, Eustace and Ebenezer (known as Eb for short) and became part of the firm when Dodd bought out Fincham in 1894. The goodwill was £1,200 and this included the plant and an assurance that Fincham & Hobday would not accept any work in South Australia for 10 years (4).
The new firm quickly changed the policies of Fincham & Hobday. Dodd had a flair for publicity. William Sanders was the organist of Clayton Congregational Church, Norwood, and gave the opening recital there in October, 1897; he edited a paper called Music from 1896 to 1900 and it carried a monthly report of what went on in the factory. When Dodd needed new staff he advertised in Melbourne, Sydney and Germany. By 1912 the firm was advertising that it had branches in Adelaide 1881, London 1894, Perth 1903 and Auckland 1908. Adelaide should be 1894 but it was a convenient slip of the memory. The London address arose because Dodd was anxious to keep his contacts in New Zealand and, though a London address did not matter in Australia, in New Zealand such an address was regarded as 'the hallmark of perfection' (5). Dodd, sensing this, asked his London agent to put up his plate on their door and advertised in the Musical Opinion that they had a London agent for the firm. The New Zealand firm was really just one of Dodd's friends. Perth was true; the son Ebenezer had started a branch there.
Further publicity came with the publication of two descriptive booklets. The first in 1906 listed the 20 new organs built and the rebuilt and reconditioned ones. The rest of the booklet was composed of testimonials which were generous in their praise. Dr Harold Davies said he considered that as an organbuilder 'he has real genius' (6) and William Sanders, the Clayton organist, thought that stop for stop Dodd's work compared most favourably with the great Hill organ in Sydney Town Hall and the fine Lewis organ in St Paul's Cathedral. Melbourne and 'that so far as touch and stop control it was ahead' (7).
The appointment and management of staff was given very careful attention. By 1909 the firm were employing 20 hands under the assistant management of Eustace Dodd (8). Employees were not allowed to work privately or build organs after hours. Working hours were 48 a week (what price the Metal Trades Union 35 hour week! ) 7.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. every day except Saturday when they ceased at 1 p.m. These working hours did not apply to Eustace Dodd or his father. They worked every day till 11 or 12 at night.
Tuning contracts are the life blood of any organ firm and Dodd worked hard to keep these going. One shrewd move was to give a church a private donation to set against their tuning contract (9), and another means was to take a sitting out in a particular church. Dodd was careful to do more than tune and frequently made extra visits to put some mechanical defect in order. Boys who went on the tuning round were not allowed to carve their names at the back of the case and when the Rev. Henry Girdlestone, Headmaster of St Peter's College, wrote to Dodd about some writing on the back of that instrument (still there, I might add) Dodd replied that he could not help as all his boys were made to sign a form on joining the firm and it was instant dismissal if caught. The firm liked church authorities to keep their organ chambers locked: 1. because amateur organbuilders took note of their pipe scalings; 2. because amateur tuners often tried to show how much better they were; 3. because cats got in the organ chamber at St Augustine's, Unley, and played merry hell with the trackers!
The salesmanship involved in placing the merits of Dodd organs above all other competitors received careful attention. Dodd liked to meet organ committees and answer their questions. He made no secret that his prices were higher than other firms and he often declined a contract because the firm was too busy to complete it by the suggested date.
Imported organs were discouraged. An English organ was 50% higher in price and soundboards often could not stand the climate. The sad case of the imported organ at St George's, Goodwood, was quoted as a warning with a moral ending. It was priced at £250 at Noterman's in England, but with freight etcetera it rose to £440. When it arrived, the pipes were squashed flat and the organ had to be reconstructed to fit the chamber it had been designed for, and the cost rose to £530. Summer came and the wood began to shrink so that the chest, bellows, case and wooden pipes opened up - another £200 (10).
If salesmanship on imported organs could discourage people, the firm was dynamite on secondhand organs. If people wanted to sell a secondhand organ to them they declined it because it was too small, but if they put in a new organ and bought the old one, they could write round to every contact they knew, saying that they had just the organ to suit them.
What sort of personality was Josiah Eustace Dodd? Stories abound but none of them are malicious. It seems he was not musical, did not like the music of Mendelssohn and could not read music (11). Yet he had a good ear for tuning, voicing and balance. He was a tremendous worker and one occasion in his later years collapsed and was unconscious for three minutes. When he came to he pointed to a workman at the bench and said: "That's not the way to hammer that." He had a gift for friendship. Edwin Lemare, the virtuoso organist, came to Adelaide in 1903 and was most impressed with Dodd's work and particularly the tonal qualities (12). Another friend was Auguste Wiegand the Belgian organist of Sydney Town Hall who influenced Dodd's ideas on specifications Another protege was Horace Weber who at an early age was appointed to St Bede's, Semaphore. Dodd suggested him to the Anglican Cathedral at Napier in New Zealand.
It is 99 years ago that Dodd came to Adelaide with the firm of Fincham. His firm started in 1894 and is now 94 years old. Very briefly let me sketch its main events. Within the first 12 years they had built or reconditioned 47 instruments (13) and they included three triumphs here - Clayton, Kent Town and Elder Hall (now at Port Pirie), two Cathedrals in Perth, Napier Cathedral, New Zealand, Paterson Street, Methodist Church, Launceston and the large three manual at Lismore. The Perth branch started in 1903, the Melbourne branch in 1920. At the end of World War 1 they went into theatre organs and they reached a crisis in 1922-25 when Eustace was in capital cities installing theatre organs and then left the firm. At this time an ex-employee, W.L Roberts started his own firm and took any business in Adelaide and Melbourne.
By 1935 the Gunn brothers and Bill Binding were fed up with Dodd and his dictatorial attitudes. and they set up Gunstar Organ Works. About four or five years later, people were going off to the war and materials were short. so they amalgamated - hence the title of the present firm J. E. Dodd & Sons, Gunstar Organ Works (14).
In case you didn't know, this lecture is in three parts. You have just survived the first part on Dodd's life, salesmanship and the history of the firm; the second part is Dodd's tonal ideals; and the third section on his own assessment of his mechanical work. Now for Dodd's tonal ideals.
It is possible that George Fincham had no idea that Dodd would look anywhere but to him for pipework when he started his firm in 1894. Dodd however did not approve of the firm which he thought was conservative and did not appreciate the suggestions or advice of others. (Tell me the old, old, story!) He used Fincham pipework for replacements for Fincham instruments in South Australia, but went abroad for pipework for new organs. Four years later in 1898 Fincham sent out a price list. One quote was for a Principal for £7. 2/ 6, but Eustace said they could get that for £2. 6/ 0 in England. They didn't like Fincham reeds becanse Hobday was the reed expert and after he left the firm the reed quality dropped. In 1899 he ordered pipes from Laukhuff in Germany. This was a trial order to test his product. It comprised a set of Open Diapason pipes, the metal to be quite hard to stand the climate, a double set of organ keys and a middle C pipe of Oboe, Cornopean and Vox Humana. About these Dodd was quite specific. 'I don't like reeds, twangy or rough , I like plenty of ground tone as though you had a 16 ft pipe speaking with it - mostly all reeds are thin to me and brassy in tone which makes the organ sound harsh". Ultimately he ended up only buying consoles from Laukhuff and making his own wooden pipes - the metal ones came from two firms Palmers, and Michell of Wakefield.
After he discovered Michell in 1907, the majority of the orders went there, but certain lines of Palmers he preferred. In 1897 he told Palmers that he preferred their reeds even if Willis did have the name. Such an extravagant claim was soon changed when he complained about the reeds sent out for the Elder Hall organ. These he said were much too soft from middle C upwards and dropped off quickly. "I had to strengthen them to fully twice the power, which I was obliged to do to get the organ passed by Prof. Ives. The Tromba on the great, voiced to 7" which I got right. In fact it is the best reed in South Australia" (15). Dodd kept at Palmers to try and produce broader toned reeds for the Trumpet and Cornopean type of stop. He said, "I don't see why we cannot get reed stops like the orchestral cornet in the bands. You listen to that instrument - you will find a perfect equality from start to finish if it is a good one!".
On the subject of scaling Eustace wrote, "The organ world bows down in almost adoration to Henry Willis and his success was due to his absolutely true conception of true scales, placing and voicing to suit the position. There is no hard and fast rule as to scale. One has firstly to determine about the scale from the cubic capacity of the building, and after testing the same carefully, going right over the place thoroughly, vary this original estimate, according to the true acoustical properties of the building. Definitely arriving at this basic scale and determining on the spot, the specific treatment for voicing, one can work up in true lines the super chorus, laying the whole 'scale' on their basic foundation, subject to very delicate variation and special treatment for voicing, according to the particular acoustical properties of the building'' (16). The firm were quite definite on the importance of good scales with a thick heavy metal even if they were outclassed in competition with a lesser firm who used poor scales and saved money.
We see the importance of this when we look at what happened at St Peter's, Eastern Hill, Melbourne (17). The building is very dry and quite significantly drier when full of people and the scales of the old organ in contrast to the present instrument were chosen by Arthur Nickson with this in mind.
One commendable thing about the firm was their honesty about compass. They disapproved of stops to tenor C and advocated a 61 note compass to C. They even liked an extra octave of pipes at the top so that the swell octave did not cut back.
Not so honest was their 'opening recital policy'. They usually put some spare slides on the soundboard. For the opening recital they would 'lend' two ranks of pipes so that the tone colour of the organ could be increased.
In an article in the Register in January, 1899 the firm was complimented because it achieved instruments that had power without harshness and Clayton and Kent Town were cited as convincing examples of the modern art. To avoid that harshness Dodd did not complete his choruses and while individually the stops were of good quality and skilfully voiced, the ensemble and clarity were bad. So said John Maidment in his unpublished survey Victorian Pipe Organs. If that sounds a load of codswallop as regards Clayton Congregational Church Norwood it is certainly true of the organs after 1903 when wind pressures and scales increased.
For Diapasons, they liked them broad and fat like Botticelli Madonnas, not thin-scaled as the Fincham ones were. Fifteenths in the Swell they considered unnecessary as the super octave could be heard in the Swell Mixture. They loathed Great Twelfths and took them out and replaced them with Dulcianas or Lieblich Gedacts as at Norwood Baptist(18). Mixtures fared no better. They could be replaced with a Viol d'orchestre, a manual double or a Celeste. However Mixtures were in for large organs though their composition was extraordinary dull.
Flutes by the firm were always of fine quality and considerable variety(19). They made their own Hohl flutes and preferred them to Stopped Diapasons or Rohr flutes too because of their solo colour. For strings they liked them very stringy. The delightful Fincham Keraulophon (an example is in The Church of All Nations in Carlton, Victoria) did not appeal and they used the orchestral- Viol d'orchestre. On the Great they modelled a less stringy-sounded Viola on the Bishop type. They were ecstatic about the Viola in St Augustine's Church, Unley "unquestionably the finest I have heard'', said Dodd.
They pioneered in the country the Labial Oboe which was a flue imitation of the orchestral oboe stop - there is an example at Hamilton, South Australia - because it stayed in tune, but in the city they favoured the Cornopean as the first reed in the Swell.
Finally on choice of stops - Dodd would never install an organ without pedals. He used two pedal stops, one of which did duty as a small double.
The firm used tracker action in their earlier instruments and some country jobs and then later tubular-pneumatic action. Lyall Von Einem told me that the principle of the latter was pressure-pneumatic where the air went from the bag to the action. Leopold Roberts used exhaust-pneumatic where the reverse is true, but it led to cyphering. Roberts' actions gave trouble all over the place but Dodd's actions have been very durable over the years.
Dodd took great pride in his consoles. The first one being built to the London College of Organists' recommendation was the console at Clayton Congregational Church, Norwood and as the L. C. O. changed their recommendations he followed suit. Dodd liked coloured drawstops, manuals white, pedal red and couplers blue with bright red ink lettering. However his early customers didn't - Elder Hall 1901 was the first to have stop tabs and after that the inference was that you were old fashioned if you didn't follow the trend.
Dodd accessories were generous and, by 1908. workers stated that the firm was ahead of England; Mr Herbert Norman, examining Dodd's specification of Napier Cathedral, was of the opinion that certain effects would cost a great deal. His firm at this time had not begun to produce them but Dodd had used them for some years. Dr Harold Davies talked about ''Mr Dodd's inventive genius in these accessories". It started here (Clayton) with the hitching pedal or trigger pedals, which included the Tonerre (thunder) and Pleuvoir (rain) which no doubt William Sanders used at the first recital at Clayton Church when he played a piece called ' The Storm'. In 1908 they issued a list of mechanical devices which included the melody coupler and the reverse idea, the bass melody coupler. They used four kinds of pistons apart from fixed pistons. These were general pistons which worked over the whole organ, reversible pistons for some couplers, adjustable pistons and a great to pedals combination coupler. They also used double touch - both as pistons and on the keyboard.
The placement of the organ in the building was carefully thought about. Chambers had to be adequate in size and high enough to let the organ sound. If a special chamber was constructed it had to dry out for three months before it could receive an organ. He quoted Henry Willis as saying that there is an unwritten law which leaves 16 ft height above a 16 ft stop. The only building he know this applied to in South Australia was St Peter's Cathedral where the organ sounds splendid as the height takes off all the roughness the pipes may have, making the organ sound very mellow.
Casework was important to the firm. The general pattern was three towers with two flats. Pipes were often painted a dark shade, the days of colourful illumination having finished about 1880 (more' s the pity).
Organ blowers were developed during the new century and hydraulic blowing became the new thing that churches changed over to. This avoided the trouble they were having at Holy Trinity with their Bourdon till they discovered that the boy pumping the organ was resting his hymn books in the pipe mouths! The Payneham Methodist Church in 11 months used 32, 600 gallons of water at the rate of six pence per 1000 gallons and was in use approximately three hours per week. South Australian water was so impregnated with chemicals that all the cast-iron parts in the engines were perforated with small holes after a few years' use. To overcome this Dodd suggested these parts be made in gun metal. In the 1914 drought no organ worked for eight months so electric motors came to stay.
The balanced swell pedal was first introduced at St Ignatius', Norwood in 1897 and was used in all organs since. Single manual organs they only enclosed against their will.
Seasoned wood was a necessity here because of the climate. Every English organ had had its soundboard replaced at one time or another so they carried a 10 year supply of timber.
Wind pressures were higher than those used by Fincham. For Norwood Baptist Fincham used 2 - 3/4" and 3" for St Peter's, Glenelg (where Cecil Sharpe was the consultant). Elder Hall by Dodd was 4" on Great, Swell and Pedal, Choir 3" and reeds 8-3/4".
The firm built over 80 new instruments and rebuilt and renovated countless others (20). Dodd's contribution to the art of organbuilding was a conception of the romantic- symphonic organ for orchestral transcriptions and quick changes for colour effects. It was all tone colour and rarely chorus. Personally I like his early work while he still had Fincham influence but, as an organbuilder, he represents a notable figure to whom South Australia can only turn in gratitude.
SOME REPRESENTATIVE ORGANS
