Brindley & Foster

Brindley & Foster was a pipe organ builder based in Sheffield who flourished between 1854 and 1939.

Background

The business was established by Charles Brindley in 1854. He was joined by Albert Healey Foster in 1871 and the company acquired the name Brindley & Foster.

Charles Brindley was born in Baslow in the early 1830s. He retired in 1887 and died in 1893.

Brindley was a follower of Edmund Schulze. He built solid instruments with powerful choruses using Vogler’s Simplification system. Pipes placed in chromatic order on the soundboards allowed for a simple and reliable key action and permitted similar stops to share the same bass, keeping both space and cost to a minimum. The Swell organ was often mounted above the Great in the German manner.

After the partnership with Foster they began to manufacture more complex pneumatic mechanisms for stop combinations; he also concentrated on the production of orchestral effects.

The business of Brindley and Foster was bought by Willis in 1939.

List of new organs

• Holy Trinity, Ashby-de-la-Zouch 1867
• All Saints' Church, Oakham 1872
• St. Mary's Church, Arnold 1876
• St John's Church, Ranmoor, Sheffield 1877 - destroyed by fire 1887
• Worksop Priory 1879
• Saint Mark's Anglican, Alexandria, Egypt 1883
• St John's Church, Ranmoor, Sheffield 1888
• Lesmahagow Old Parish Church 1889
• Durban City Hall, Durban, South Africa, 1894
• St. Mary's Wesleyan Methodist Church, Truro 1895
• Holy Sepulchre Anglican Church, Grafton, Auckland, New Zealand 1896 (rebuilt with new slider soundboards by Norman & Beard 1913, but remains tonally the same.)
• St. John's Church, Worksop 1896
• St Mary's Church, Wirksworth 1899
• St. Mark's Church, Mansfield 1900
• Pietermaritzburg City Hall, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, 1901 - one of the largest pipe organ in the Southern Hemisphere
• Chalmers' Presbyterian Church, Timaru, New Zealand 1903
• St Mary Lowgate, Kingston upon Hull 1904
• Holy Trinity Church, Lenton 1906
• Toxteth Unitarian Chapel 1906
• St. Anne's Church, Moseley 1907
• Christ Church, Chester 1909
• St Paul and St John the Evangelist, Monklands, Airdrie, Scotland – Installed & dedicated 1911 and the only addition made to the original design, was the addition of a Tremolo Stop at some point. The instrument was restored in 1998,and is in original condition and retaining the original hand pump, which can still be used today if there is a power cut!!

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

List of works of restorations and renovations

• St Mary's, Staines 1871 (probable renovation)
• All Saints Church, Bakewell 1883
• St Mary's Church, Tickhill 1898
• St Paul and St John the Evangelist (Monklands), Springwells Avenue, Airdrie, ML6, Scotland, UK 1998

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.