BIOS Reporter – Volume 24, No.1 – January 2000

What is a British organ? A simplistic answer is that it is one conceived and made in the British Isles, within certain limitations as to stop nomenclature, chorus design and so on, although that definition immediately stumbles over the neo-baroque efforts of the 1960s and 1970s, and the political position of Ireland. Organ literature is not helpful in offering a solution. Hopkins & Rimbault (third edition, 457) promises much with a bold heading ‘BRITISH ORGANS. LONDON AND ITS ENVIRONS’. Any hope that the definition would be extended to include other parts of Britain is dashed with a later heading ‘COUNTRY ORGANS’, dealing with the rest of England and a few Welsh examples followed by ‘ORGANS IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND’. Elsewhere, the confusion is compounded with ‘THE PEDALS …THEIR INTRODUCTION INTO ENGLAND’…