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Organ organist

The Eighteenth Century

After the death of Smith, Christopher Schrider, Smith’s son-in-law, was invited to assess the condition of the instrument. Apart from new stop nomenclature thought to be due to the original pasted labels on the jambs falling off, the only significant change appeared on the chair organ where ‘The Crumhorn, cal’d Cremona Stop of mettle’ replaced the ‘Violl and Violin’. The compass is given as sixty and not sixty-one notes.

Further work by Schrider was carried out in 1729 when the echo became a “Swelling” organ.  John Stanley was the organist to the Society of the Inner Temple from 1734 until his death in 1786. His brilliant playing attracted the attention of many fine musicians including Handel who regularly visited the church to hear him.

In 1741, John Byfield senior (1694-1751) added a new Swell of six stops without the “quarter tones”. The manual compass was FFF (no FFF sharp nor GG sharp) to D for the Great and Choir Organs, and fiddle G to D for the Swell Organ.

The 1810 Specfication:

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