Doug with the restored barrel organ
Property | |||||||||||||||||
Name of institution | Western Australian Maritime Museum | ||||||||||||||||
Type of institution0 | Museum | ||||||||||||||||
Street Address | Cliff Street | ||||||||||||||||
City | Fremantle | ||||||||||||||||
State | Western Australia | ||||||||||||||||
Postcode | 6160 | ||||||||||||||||
Country | Australia | ||||||||||||||||
Name of building | Western Australian Maritime Museum | ||||||||||||||||
Name of room | The Shipwreck Gallery | ||||||||||||||||
Dates of the building | |||||||||||||||||
Register of Heritage Places | Registered 22 Jun 2001 | ||||||||||||||||
Heritage Place number | 00857 | ||||||||||||||||
Architect | |||||||||||||||||
Builder | |
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Special architectural features and fittings | The former Commissariat Buildings, comprising the ‘A’ Store (1852),
the ‘B’ Store (1860-61), the ‘Drum’ Store (1895-96) the ‘New Store’ (1898), and the
Administration Building (1852; c.1896), which are of limestone construction in
the Victorian Georgian and the Victorian Regency styles, has cultural heritage
significance for the following reasons: |
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Other location information | The Maritime Museum in Cliff Street, Fremantle, has been renamed the Western
Australian Maritime Museum Shipwreck Galleries. The Shipwreck Galleries are recognised as the foremost maritime archaeology museum in the southern hemisphere. The displays in the restored convict-built Commissariat building feature early exploration and shipwrecks along the treacherous coastline as early as the 17th Century, including original timbers from the Dutch VOC ship the Batavia, wrecked in 1629. |
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Mailing Address | |||||||||||||||||
Telephone | 08 9431 8444 | ||||||||||||||||
Other contact information | Western Australian Maritime Museum |
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Previous organ(s) | |||||||||||||||||
Date of previous organ | None | ||||||||||||||||
Detail of previous organ | |||||||||||||||||
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Variations from original design of organ | |||||||||||||||||
Information on previous organ | |||||||||||||||||
Information about comparable instruments to previous organ | |||||||||||||||||
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Present organ | |||||||||||||||||
Type of installation | |
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Case description | |
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Placement in room | |
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Builder's name | Wurlitzer Company, North Tonawanda, N.Y., U.S.A |
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Opus number | |
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Date of completion/installation | 1892 |
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Construction materials | |
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Key compasses | |
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Number of keys | |
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Key material | |
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Pedal compass | |
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Number of pedals | |
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Pedalboard type | |
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Pedalboard material | |
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Type of chests | |
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Type of key action | |
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Type of stop action | |
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Couplers | |
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Tremulants | |
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Accessories | |
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Console type | |
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Stop label material | |
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Placement | |
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General design | |
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Playing aids | |
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Divisions | |
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Wind pressures | |
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Stop list |
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Total number of stops | |
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Total number of ranks | 4 ranks, operable by barrels. |
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Total number of pipes | |
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Dates when key work has been undertaken on current organ | |
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Dates of any moves that have taken place to current organ | Used on a merry-go-round on the Fremantle foreshore operated by Percy Wright.
Presented to Museum by D.G. Miller Rebuilt and relocated to Western Australian Museum Boola Bardip, Perth, c2020. |
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Information on current organ | The Barrel Organ In 1971 a barrel organ became another of my ventures into the organ world. I believe the instrument was a German Wurlitzer type. The organ was given to me by an elderly gentleman; Mr Percy Wright who lived in Palmyra. Percy had been a fairground operator at Point Walter and South Beach sometime in the 1920's and 1930's. His expertise was making the wooden horses for his merry-go-round. A barrel organ had been acquired from Sydney, near Manly pier. As merry-go-rounds are required to make very loud music to attract potential customers, Percy had the organ installed on the ground in the centre of the revolving merry-go-round with a supply of air generated from the same engine that powered the carousel. During the war years the organ was removed but the merry-go-round continued delighting patrons. I believe it is the same merry-go-round in use today at the Perth Zoo. Percy had stored the barrel organ at his home for a few years, on wooden blocks resting on a sand floor in his shed - well covered from the elements. White ants like dark places , peace and quiet and love pine-like material. After removing the heavy tarpaulin we discovered their "dining room". The barrel organ was moved to my workshop and thinking "I knew it all", I decided to replace all the white ant eatings while learning to restore the organ to a working order. I was able to copy much of the pipework and tune the pipes against the family piano; my home was adjacent to the garage. After many months of repair and replacing, we were able to get a reasonable tune. I felt I had given the old instrument a new lease of life. We had two barrels which, thankfully, missed the ant invasion - all the brass pinnings were intact and each barrel had several tunes (in pinned form) written on each barrel. After many hours of tinkering, turning the "handle" which came with the organ case, we were able to recognise the tunes which had been pinned on the remaining two barrels- "Sousa marching tunes, "Daisy Bell" and other tunes of the day. The tracker mechanism is activated by the revolving pinned barrel which in turn, opens and closes the pallets in the wind chest, as it works in conventional pipe organs. Such excitement! With a bit of winding and gentle persuasion, it worked! The organ is not played with a conventional keyboard or pedal, but has a drum constructed in wood approximately 900mm in length and 250 mm in diameter with a metal core. It revolves at a slow pace and activates a pair of bellows underneath the mechanism. The "music" is written in thousands of brass pins driven in line around the wooden pine drum or barrel. The tracker travels over the brass pins and trips the start and stop of a note. Many pins make a staccato note, and a long continuous strip around the barrel plays a sustained note, the tracker reproduces whatever is pinned in line around the barrel. I realised I was dealing with something rather special, "old" "unique"; the only one of its kind in WA. I decided it must be available for the public to see, so I gave it to the Fremantle Museum, where it was on display for a period of time. Unfortunately after having been cranked anti clockwise by over-enthusiastic museum patrons, a pinned barrel was seriously damaged, so the organ went to museum storage. After the initial rescue from the kindling bucket, the organ is now being exhibited in the Perth Museum, behind glass for all to see! The outer casework has been repaired but is as close to the original as given to me. In its heyday it had been polished like an upright piano, but somewhere during its life had been painted a muddy cream and some of the panels had been clothed. Doug Miller, September 2021 |
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Comparable instruments to current organ | |
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Assessment of organ and current status | No longer at this location |
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Other organs by this builder | |
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Document control | Original entries J R Elms, OAM,
Gazetteer of Western Australian Pipe Organs, 1971, 1999, 2003 and 2004. This entry D B Duncan 23 January 2009. Restoration information and photographs of the organ by Doug Miller, September 2021. |