St Luke's Anglican Church

Ekibin Road East, Ekibin

Charles Dirksen Organ Co., Brisbane, 1957
Action reconditioned c.1971 Hill, Norman & Beard, Melbourne
2 manuals, 4 ranks extended, electric action

St Luke's Anglican Church, Ekibin
[Photograph by Howard Baker (1990s)]

Historical and Technical Documentation by Geoffrey Cox
© OHTA 2012 (last updated January 2012)

The Anglican Parish of St Luke the Evangelist, Ekibin, dates from 1925. The present brick church was opened and dedicated by Archbishop Halse on 9 December 1956.¹

The 1957 Charles Dirksen organ
St Luke's Anglican Church, Ekibin
[Photograph by Howard Baker (1990s)]

The organ was built in 1956-57 by the Charles Dirksen Organ Co. of Brisbane. It was opened and dedicated at Evensong on Sunday 19 May 1957 by the Very Rev. D.E. Taylor, Dean of St John's Cathedral, Brisbane. After the service, Mr Dirksen, the designer and builder of the instrument, gave a short organ recital including works by Bach, Handel, Couperin and J. Zwart.²

This was the first of a number of organs built in Queensland by Charles Dirksen, a Dutchman who had trained with the firm of L. Verschueren, Heythuysen, Netherlands, before migrating to Australia. He spent two years in Adelaide before moving to Brisbane in 1956 for his honeymoon. Deciding to stay in Brisbane, he set up his own business there, but returned to Holland around 1963 after a period of ill health. A specialist in pipe-making, Dirksen made his own metal and wooden pipes in Brisbane.³

As was the case with the majority of his instruments, this one was designed on extension principles using direct electric action. Altogether, Dirksen completed seven extension organs in Queensland, the majority for chapels of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Three of these were of two ranks: for the Mormon chapel, Camp Hill (1957), the Mormon chapel, Toowoomba (1957) and the Mormon chapel, Chermside (1958). The others were of four ranks: this one for Ekibin (1957), followed by the Mormon chapel, Kangaroo Point (1958), the Presbyterian Church, Wynnum (1960) and Emmanuel College, St Lucia (1961). The Ekibin instrument is unusual in that only three of its four ranks are extended, the Pedal including an independent Open Bass 8ft rank that is not used elsewhere on the instrument.

Console of the 1957 Charles Dirksen organ
with new fittings (1971)
St Luke's Anglican Church, Ekibin
[Photograph by Howard Baker (1990s)]

No couplers

Tremulant ['Tremulant' on opening order of service, but 'Tremolo' noted at console, 1974].
Compass: 61/32
Direct electric action
Detached stop-key console
Balanced swell pedal.⁴

The action of the instrument was reconditioned around 1971 by Hill, Norman & Beard (Aust.) Pty Ltd of Melbourne. New console fittings appear to have been supplied at this time, and the original tremulant was replaced.⁵ The bellows were re-leathered in 1990-91 by W.J. Simon Pierce of Brisbane.⁶

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1 Glenda Murrell, Anglican Records and Archive Centre Guide to Records (DioceseofBrisbaneWeb, 2001) - cited January 2004.

2 Organ dedication service leaflet 19 May 1957.

3 Personal communication to G. Cox from John Spall, an employee of Dirksen in Brisbane, 1973.

4 Specification noted by G. Cox, February 1974, and from organ dedication service leaflet 19 May 1957.

5 OHTA News, vol. 14, no. 2 (April 1990), p. 28.

6 Organ Society of Queensland Newsletter, vol. 18, no. 2 (October 1990), p. 36; Organ Society of Queensland Newsletter, vol. 18, no. 3 (December 1990), p. 52; The Organ Voice, vol. 19, no. 3 (December 1991), p. 56.