The Charterhouse organ

The organ in the Charterhouse chapel is being dismantled this week.  Work is under way to fix problems of damp in the building; floors have been taken up at the west end of the chapel, and shown to have been in a dangerous state.  Now it's the turn of the east end, and that means removing the organ.  It's a delicate operation on an illustrious instrument.
The first hint of an organ in the chapel came in 1900 in a small notice in the local paper.  The Master, William Hay Fea, had complained that the harmonium currently in use was "inharmonious" and an organ was needed.  It couldn't be afforded; but part of the agreement reached with the Charity Commission for a new scheme of governance in 1901 was that an organ would be provided when funds allowed.  It seems that plans were already in place.  The local firm of Forster and Andrews was commissioned and the new organ was ready for its debut in 1902.
Forster and Andrews was a prestigious firm which existed from 1843 to 1956, and built organs all over the world.  Strangely the Wikipedia entry on them lists dozens of organs but omits the three they built, or worked on, in their own city; the City Hall in 1911, the Minster (then Holy Trinity), an older organ which F & A worked on several times in the 19th century, and, of course, the Charterhouse.

In March 1905 the Hull Daily mail reported that "The Hull Charterhouse now has an organ", despite the fact that it was three years old.  What was new was a stop referred to in the article as a dulciana, labelled on the organ itself as a diapason.  This had been presented by the Hull Cycling Club, of which the Master, Fea, was president.  In January 1906 there was a concert in the chapel which included an organ recital.  It's in the report of this that we get the first mention of Ethel Murray, who sang a solo in the concert.  A book a [Two Centuries of Music in Hull by Norman Staveley, Hutton Press, 1999] describes her only as "a blind teacher of singing and the rehearsal conductor of the HLMU in 1902".  Ms Murray also led a choir which was paid a small sum to sing at services (then on Sunday afternoons) in the Charterhouse chapel.  We have no record of when she began this (although it seems to have been in 1902).  In July 1903 the Hull Daily Mail carried an advertisement for "choir singers" for the choir, though only altos, tenors and basses were required.  Ethel carried on until the place was evacuated and closed in 1941 after bomb damage.  In an unprecedented move the trustees awarded her a small pension for her service.  She died the following year aged 79.

Perhaps the strangest workout the organ has ever had came in March 2017, when a group called the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble gave a concert in the chapel.  It was music from a particular, non-melodic, modernist period which was not to everyone's taste but proved that the old instrument could cope with anything.
We now hope that the experts will be able to put all the pieces back together again and we can look forward to hearing our cherished organ again by Christmas.

UPDATE:  It was successfully rebuilt and is back in action.

Here it's being played by James Webb on Sunday 14 November 2021.