Uniting Church, Redcliffe
[Photograph by Howard Baker (1990s)]
Uniting Church, Redcliffe
[Photograph by Howard Baker (1990s)]
Historical and Technical Documentation by Geoffrey Cox
© OHTA 2012, 2014 (last updated July 2014)
The Redcliffe Uniting Church was opened and dedicated on 6 May 1990. There was no previous church on this site, although the new church replaced several existing churches on the Redcliffe Peninsula, including the Scarborough (Griffith Road), Redcliffe (Maine Road) and Margate (Ernest Street) Methodist Churches, the Woody Point (Kate Street) and Redcliffe (Anzac Avenue) Congregational Churches, and the Redcliffe (Josephine Street) Presbyterian Church.1
The organ in this church was built originally by Whitehouse Bros of Brisbane for the Methodist Church, Cairns. It had been in storage for several years before being purchased by the present congregation.2 The contract for the new organ had been let to Whitehouse Bros by January 1937, and it was installed in time for the opening of the new Central Methodist Church (which replaced an earlier wooden building) on 10 October that year.3
The original Methodist Church, Cairns, c.1915
[Photograph: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland]
Opening of the new Central Methodist Church, Cairns
Sunday 10 October 1937
[Photographs supplied by Sue McCombe, Office Administrator,
Emmanuel Uniting Church, Cairns, per. David Vann (July 2014)
The Whitehouse organ in new Central Methodist Church, Cairns
Sunday 10 October 1937
[Photographs supplied by Sue McCombe, Office Administrator,
Emmanuel Uniting Church, Cairns, per. David Vann (July 2014)
The firm's ledger records that the organ was built at a cost of £651.7.3, and there is specific reference in the ledger to a detached console and to 'two (2) extra couplers.'4 A performance of Handel's Messiah was given to the accompaniment of the new organ on 16 December 1937, with Mr. J. Stevens providing organ solos.5
The specification was a standard one for Whitehouse Bros two-manual pneumatic-action organs of the time, though this was one of the smallest examples:
| GREAT Open Diapason Viole de Gamba SWELL Gedact Gamba Oboe PEDAL Bourdon COUPLERS Swell to Great Swell to Pedal Great to Pedal [Swell Super Octave] [Swell Sub Octave] |
8 8 8 8 8 16 ? ? |
A A |
Compass: 61/30
Detached stop-key console
Tubular-pneumatic action.6
Four stops were added to this organ around 1950 by Mr Noel Ferguson, a Cairns optometrist who was organist at the Methodist Church, and the borrowed string stop on the Great was removed at this time. The new Swell Trumpet 8ft is reported to have come from Willis in England. It is odd that the three added Great stops (Dulciana 8ft, Principal 4ft and Fifteenth 2ft) were all of 42-note compass,7 suggesting that they derive from an earlier instrument. The origins of this pipework remain unknown. Kevin Whitehouse gave the date of these additions as around 1956, but they may date from earlier than this. In January 1949 it was reported that:
several new features and enlargements have been carried out on the Central church pipe organ by Mr. Noel M. Ferguson, increasing its tonal quality and wide range of stops.8
Additions to the organ were also mentioned in 1950, when it was stated that the 'range of the pipe organ is being extended with the addition of new pipes and stops.'9
The organ was rebuilt with electric action in 1971-72 by Whitehouse Bros of Brisbane. The original Swell Oboe 8ft was replaced at this time by a Diapason Phonon 8ft, originally from the Presbyterian Church, Warwick, and the Pedal Bass Flute 8ft was extended from the Bourdon 16ft. The old Oboe stop found its way to the organ at St Luke's Uniting Church, Hamilton, in Brisbane, which was being rebuilt around the same time.10
The specification of the rebuilt organ, opened in Cairns in June 1972, was as follows:
| GREAT Open Diapason Dulciana Principal Fifteenth SWELL Diapason Lieblich Gedact Echo Gamba Trumpet PEDAL Bourdon Bass Flute COUPLERS Swell to Great Swell to Pedal Great to Pedal Swell Octave Swell Sub Swell to Great Super Swell to Great Sub |
8 8 4 2 8 8 8 8 16 8 |
A A |
[c.1950] [c.1950] [c.1950] [1972] [c.1950, Willis] [1972] |
Compass: 61/30
Electro-pneumatic action
Detached stop-key console.11
The Whitehouse organ in the Uniting Church, Redcliffe
[Photographs by Howard Baker (1990s)]
The organ was removed to storage in 1987, and installed in its present location in 1990 by W.J. Simon Pierce of Brisbane. Limitations of space in the gallery necessitated a re-configuration of the instrument, with the Great now placed on top of the Swell. The case was stripped and cleaned and the pipework painted to match the building.12
Console of the Whitehouse organ in the Uniting Church, Redcliffe
[Photograph by Howard Baker (1990s)]
______________________________________________________________________
1 Redcliffe Uniting Church 2010: Celebrating 20 Years (Redcliffe: Redcliffe Uniting Church, [2010]).
2 Keith Lawson, 'Where did we come from?' Redcliffe Uniting Church 2010: Celebrating 20 Years (Redcliffe: Redcliffe Uniting Church, [2010]).
3 The Cairns Post (13 January 1937), p. 3; The Cairns Post (28 September 1937), p. 3.
4 Whitehouse Bros Ledger (1922-1940), p. 285.
5 The Cairns Post (14 December 1937), p. 3.
6 Original specification supplied to G. Cox by Kevin M. Whitehouse, July 1974. Details of couplers were not recorded.
7 Personal communication to G. Cox from Kevin M. Whitehouse, July 1974.
8 The Cairns Post (15 January 1949), p. 6.
9 The Cairns Post (28 October 1950), p. 6.
10 Personal communication to G. Cox from Kevin M. Whitehouse, July 1974.
11 Specification noted by G. Cox, July 1974.
12 Organ Society of Queensland Newsletter, vol. 18, no. 1 (August 1990), p. 56.