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My father was from a family of four boys
and two girls and was born at Geraardsbergen [Belgium]
in 1868. Like his brothers and sisters he was educated
at the local Carmelite schools. The principal employer in the town was the organ builders Annessens and in due course my father and two of his brothers were taken by them as apprentices. These were times of great progress in European Organ Building and Alphonse became fascinated by developments, particularly of electro-pneumatic actions. As a lad he acquired some carbon pots from friends at the gas works and some zinc rods to further his experiments which included wiring up the doors of his house and those of a Miss Emma Prieels. Such was the electrifying effect that she later became his wife. I do not know when Alphonse first came to England for Annessens, but he was certainly here in 1886 to put up the job in the Italian Church, Hatton Garden. No doubt he worked on other English jobs, Bridlington and Bradford perhaps, for he learned to speak English fluently at this time. |
At some point he decided to go to Paris to
work as draughtsman to Cavaillé-Coll for whom he had a high
regard and whose published works he had read avidly.
Annessens had offered my father the job of running their
French factory at Halluin, but my mother refused to live in
a border town where, as with many such towns, various
curious activities went on.
Alphonse's experience was undoubtedly enlarged in Paris, but
he left there in 1894 to become manager to August Gern in
London. Gern had previously been to Cavaillé-Coll and had
settled in England in the 1860's. I. can only speculate why
Alphonse left Paris and the Master whom he so admired.
Perhaps he found the firm too conservative - only recently
they had de-electrified St. Augustin's in Paris - or perhaps
he found Cavaillé-Coll at 83 past his best.
It was the Organ Builders' strike of 1898 that decided my
father to set up on his own. I forget the details of the
strike, no doubt it was to do with money, but the Organ
Builders' Society as the Union was then called decided to
begin the strike at Gern's because he was 'foreign'. Gern
suffered badly over this as the strikers picketed his doors
and turned away clients calling there. So Alphonse rented
the factory in Shepherds Bush and opened his doors for
business in 1898 aged 30 years.
He aimed first for a quick and efficient action through the
means of electricity and used this for the piston action of
Christ Church, Watney Street. In those days the usual source
of current was Leclancé cells, but they were forever drying
out and the zinc rods needed scraping to keep the voltage
up. No generators or T.R. units in those days. He was
convinced that the future lay with electricity and had he
lived he would have had his view justified, but at that time
had to turn reluctantly to producing a more efficient
pneumatic action.
He decided that if the key action was to be prompt over
distances great and small no wind should be dissipated
between the touch box and motor action that all coupling was
done mechanically in the console. He went through a tough
time to establish himself, but once the job was built for
Whitefields Tabernacle, Tottenham Court Road he went ahead
until the outbreak of the Great War, his last job being St.
Peter's Church, Lee.
Alphonse retained much of the Continental style of voicing,
using canisters and bearding open wood pipework where
possible. But as he used to say, “It's no good having good
voicing if you don't have a good action”.
He died from the 'flu epidemic in April 1919, 3 months after
I was released from the RAF.
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