How It All Started:
If there is one man who can lay claim to the title "Father of the Theatre Organ"
it must surely be Robert Hope-Jones. He was the English inventor whose ideas inspired
the design of the mighty Wurlitzer.
He was born in 1859 in a village called Hooton Grange, on the Wirral, in North West
England. He was a gifted church organist, even in his childhood - playing the church
organ for services at the age of nine. He became Chief Electrician at a telephone
company, and with his knowledge of low voltage relay circuits, gave birth to the
use of electro-mechanical relay circuits in organ building. He started designing
and inventing new technology, and rebuilt two organs. Finally he gave up his job
with the telephone company, to devote himself full time to the development of theatre
organs. He then started a succession of companies which failed, due to his insistence
on rigid adherence to specifications.
In 1903 he and his wife left Britain hurriedly for the USA, after being unable to
raise any more finance for his failed companies. In 1907 he set up a company in Elmira,
which by 1909 had become very successful on the manufacturing side. But again Hope-Jones's
strict adherence to specifications proved too costly and the company failed. However,
Hope-Jones's expertise had never gone unnoticed, and the Wurlitzer company of Tonawanda
offered to him an executive position, which he accepted. Wurlitzer then began the
successful manufacture of cinema and theatre organs using Robert Hope-Jones's design
ideas. These included the now familiar stop tabs in the colours: white for flutes,
tibias and diapasons etc. red for reeds, yellow for strings and black for couplers.
The tabs themselves were another of Hope-Jones's genius ideas: he first made the
prototypes by slicing the bone handles of kitchen knives and cementing them to the
stop key switches.
But, once again his rigid demands got him into trouble and eventually he was forbidden
to enter the factory. Totally demoralised, he ended his life in a rented hotel room
on the 12th of September 1914. It goes without saying that Robert Hope-Jones's ingenious
ideas and inventions set the groundwork and patterns for the electronic theatre organs
and keyboards of today.
Chris Rolph.
Webmaster, Theatre Organ Magic ©
