Bryceson

Bryceson organ in the parish church of Seelow

Bryceson were organ builders and an organ building company in London in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

history

Henry Bryceson (1775–1870) from Perth in Scotland founded an organ building company in London in 1796 according to his own statements. The first mention of an organ builder there is from 1802.

In 1859 he took his son Henry Jr. (1832–1909) as co-owner at Bryceson & Son . In the same year, the son John (1839-1908) became a partner in Bryceson & Sons . In 1860 John Fincham was briefly involved with Bryceson & Fincham . After that the company was called Bryceson & Sons again .

In 1864, Henry Bryceson sr. the management completely to the sons, who they now called Bryceson Brothers . In 1868, together with Alfred Morten, they were granted the right to build organs with an electric key mechanism based on the patent of Charles Barker , the only ones in the United Kingdom . Two years earlier, he had installed this for the first time worldwide in Salon-de-Provence in France. They built some of these organs in London the following year.

In 1873 Albert Morten became a co-owner of Bryceson & Morten . After he became self-employed in 1877, Walter B. Ellis became a partner in Bryceson [Brothers] & Ellis in 1878 . From 1882 the brothers worked again alone as Bryceson Brothers . In 1885 they received the gold medal at the International Inventors Exhibition in South Kensington for the electric music action in an organ, which was then the last of their kind.

In 1888 they sold the organ building company to seven investors, who renamed it Bryceson Brothers Ltd. continued. They applied for liquidation (insolvency) three years later. In 1893, the organ builder Albert Kirkland took over the company and continued to run it as Bryceson Brothers until at least 1911. After that, he called it Kirkland & Bryceson Brothers , before closing their London workshops in 1917. He finished his work as an organ builder in 1923 and died four years later.

Organs (selection)

A total of around 190 new organs are known from the Bryceson organ building company, which they built mainly in southern England. One is now in Seelow in Brandenburg.

year	place	building	image	Manuals	register	Remarks
1810	Shelland	King Charles's Church		I.	6th
1860	Godmanchester	St Mary's Church		III / P	31
1862	Pujols-sur-Dordogne	Église Notre Dame		I.	4th
1868	Brighton	Dome Concert Hall		IV / P	49	not received
around 1875	Saint Austell	Holy Trinity Church		III / P	35
1876	Cork	Sts Peter and Paul's Church		III / P	37
1880	Norwich	St Andrew's Hall		III / P	57
1880	Gibraltar	Holy Trinity Cathedral		II / P		extended to III / P, 27, received
1880	Leicester	St George's Church		III / P	27	Serbian Orthodox Church today, probably not preserved
1889	Dartmouth	St Savior Church		III / P	32
around 1890	Walthamstow	St Gabriel's Church		II / P	14th
1893	?	?		II / P	17th	moved to Wuppertal , 2010 in the town church Seelow in Brandenburg
1895	Pulborough	St Mary's Church		III / P	32	2015 packed for water inflow
1900	Chale	St Andrew's Church		II / P	9
1908	Trowbridge	St James's Church		III / P	52 (46)	Transferred to Edenbridge , Sts Peter and Paul in 1980

literature

• JDC Hemsley: Henry Bryceson (1832-1909) organ-builder and early work in application of electricity to organ actions . PhD thesis. Cardiff University, 2005. pp. 177-182. ( PDF )
• Douglas E. Bush, Richard Kassel (Eds.): The organ. To encyclopedia. Routledge, New York 2006. ISBN 0-415-94174-1 . P. 84
• Uwe Pape: Bryceson . In: Uwe Pape, Wolfram Hackel, Christhard Kirchner (Eds.): Lexicon of North German Organ Builders. Volume 4. Berlin, Brandenburg and the surrounding area . Pape Verlag, Berlin 2017. P. 76f. (after Hemsley)

Web links

• Bryceson Orgeldatabase, 52 organs (Dutch, German)
• Bryceson Brothers Orgelsite, 18 organs (Dutch)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Organ in Shelland , organ Database (Dutch).
2. ^ Organ in Godmanchester , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).
3. ^ Organ in Pujols-sur-Dordogne , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).
4. ↑ Organ in Brighton , Orgeldatabase (Dutch)
5. ^ Organ in Saint Austell , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).
6. ^ Organ in Cork , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).
7. ^ Organ in Norwich , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).
8. ↑ Gibraltar Holy Trinity Cathedral Organ bowerorgans.uk (English)
9. ^ Organ in Leicester , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).
10. ↑ Saint Savior Church Organ Orgelsite (Dutch)
11. ^ Organ in Dartmouth , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).
12. ^ Church of Saint Gabriel Organ Orgelsite (Dutch)
13. ^ Organ in Walthamstow , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).
14. ^ Organ in Seelow Institute for Organ Research Brandenburg
15. ^ Leak damages Pulborough organ County Times
16. ^ Organ in Pulborough , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).
17. ^ Organ in Chale , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).
18. ^ Organ in Trowbridge , Orgeldatabase (Dutch).