The former Eagle Junction Congregational Church
[Photograph by Geoffrey Cox (February 2007)]
The former Eagle Junction Congregational Church
[Photograph by Geoffrey Cox (February 2007)]
Historical and Technical Documentation by Geoffrey Cox
© OHTA 2012 (last updated June 2012)
The organ in this church was completed in March 1933 by Whitehouse Bros of Brisbane at a cost of £560, the specification having been drawn up in June 1932.1 It was dedicated on 5th March 1933, the cost having been donated entirely by Mr F. Marsden. A newspaper report of the following day recorded:
The case is of Queensland silky oak, and the whole of the instrument was built in Brisbane, the only imported parts being the metal pipes. . . . Selections were played on the organ by Mr. Moor, and solo were contributed by Miss Isabel Maynard and Mr. F. Marsden.2
This organ was typical of the standard pneumatic-action Whitehouse instruments of the time, using cone-pallet chests and featuring 'inclined-block type' stop tabs placed in a row above the upper manual. The Eagle Junction instrument was one of the most tonally restricted examples of the type, neither manual in this instance including any stop above 8ft pitch. In this respect it harks back to the diminutive design of one of the firm's early pneumatic instruments at St Barnabas' Church, Ithaca (1913). The duplexing of the Swell Gamba 8ft as a Salicional 8ft on the Great Organ was a common feature on these instruments from the early 1930s onwards.3
| GREAT Open Diapason Salicional SWELL Violin Diapason Gamba Gedact Oboe PEDAL Bourdon COUPLERS Swell to Great Swell to Pedal Great to Pedal Swell to Great Super Swell to Great Sub |
8 8 8 8 8 8 16 |
[from Swell] [gvd bass] [Tenor C] |
Swell tremulant
Attached stop-key console
Balanced swell pedal
Tubular-pneumatic action
Compass: 61/30.4
The organ was damaged to some extent by rain water in January 1974 at a time when Brisbane experienced severe flooding. It was removed in 1978 to St Martin's Anglican Church, Mullumbimby, N.S.W,5 where it has been electrified and enlarged.
1 Whitehouse Bros Ledger (1922-1940), p. 153.
2 The Brisbane Courier (7 March 1933), p. 15.
3 This duplexing arrangement was used earlier by Whitehouse Bros at St John's Presbyterian Church, Annerley (1930), Holy Trinity, Woolloongabba (1930) and also at Scots Church, Clayfield (1933). It can be observed much later at Morningside Methodist Church (1947), and Lutwyche Methodist Church (1949), although both stops were named 'Salicional' by this time. Earlier Whitehouse pneumatic instruments, such as St Francis', Nundah (1926) and St Barnabas, Ithaca (1913), had generally included an independent 'Dulciana' on the Great.
4 Specification noted by G. Cox, 1973; Some details also from the Collected Organ Specifications of Bernie Brohan (c.1952).
5 Date supplied by David Vann, 1978.