Organists’ Review August 2011 31

CASSON’S CREATIONS

The centenary of the death of aremarkably inventive organ-builder,Thomas Casson, was quietly butsignificantly celebrated in a hiddencorner of rural Northamptonshire,where, in a tiny village where time hasstood still, the only evidence of theIndustrial Revolution is the remarkableorgan at the west end of its church.

Enter All Saints’ church, ThorpeMalsor, looking for an organ, and onemight expect to find a tiny two-manualtucked away in Oxford Movementfashion somewhere at the east end, withstandard pipe-rack of plain zinc 8ftbasses above pitch-pine panelling.Perhaps a Holdich (his part of theworld) or a Porritt (his, too) or even anearly Taylor (on his patch).

But no: to enter All Saints’ andthen look west is to behold a quiteremarkable sight – much the mostspectacular nineteenth century organ inany village church the length andbreadth of the land. Standing there,replete with 16ft pedal towers, allgloriously painted with lavish biblicalreferences and images of saints andangels, is an organ by Thomas Casson,installed during the 1880s and restoredby David Wood (Wood of Huddersfield)to full working order after many yearsof damply mouldering away.

Accompanying this article arenumerous wonderful visual images ofthis organ, for it is those which shouldlinger in the reader’s mind long afterthese words have been forgotten. Letme briefly tell the tale – the tale of aningenious man, rather out of his depththrough his own ingenuity, many ofwhose little one-manual ‘Positive’organs are with us still, but very fewexamples of anything larger.

Thomas Casson has been neglectedin the annals of organ history since

Casson’s Creations Thomas Casson (1842–1910) and his organ in All Saints’ Church, Thorpe Malsor, Northamptonshire – Paul Hale

Thorpe Malsor – a remarkable 16ft case

Laurie Walsh

32 Organists’ Review August 2011

CASSON’S CREATIONS

Clutton and Niland published theirseminal work The British Organ – withthe notable exception of a splendidlecture/article by Dr Relf Clark in theBIOS Journal 26 (2002). Yet earlierauthors – some of them organbuilderssuch as Walter and Thomas Lewis, someof them technical experts such as J.W.Hinton – were warm in their praises ofhis technical and theoreticaldevelopments. Let’s redress the balance

as we celebrate the centenary of hisdeath, for other great men in the organworld were directly influenced by him,as we shall see.

Sir Lewis Casson, the famous actor,(1875–1969) was a perhaps unwillingemployee for a while of his father,Thomas Casson. The Casson family wasa remarkable one in each generation.Lewis Casson married Sybil Thorndyke(for whom Shaw wrote St Joan); his

sister was Dr Elizabeth Casson (1881–1954) who founded Dorset House, thefirst School of Occupational Therapy inthe UK. Their nephew, Sir Hugh Casson(1910–99), became a notable painter,later President of the Royal Academy ofArts. Thomas Casson’s father had been abanker in Wales, a profession which theyoung Thomas seemed destined tofollow – and did for a while, until thelure of his consuming passion for organdesign led him to start having organsbuilt to his plans, apparently with asomewhat experimental instrument in1882/3. Casson at first worked withorganbuilder John Bellamy in Denbigh(at St Mary’s in 1882), thoughcommissioning Ernest Wadsworth ofManchester to make an organ to hisdesigns for the 1885 InventionsExhibition. Casson left banking in 1892to concentrate on his organ work. Onfalling out with Bellamy and the failureof his Welsh venture, Casson designedwhat was to become his trademark one-manual ‘Casson Positive Organ’ in1896, established The Positive OrganCompany in 1898 and removed toLondon around 1900. The firmcontinued in a small way after his deathuntil 1941, though its later work isscarcely recorded.

Casson gave lectures (e.g. Reform inOrgan Building, February 1888, andModern Pneumatic Organ Mechanism, May1908), wrote pamphlets (e.g. The ModernOrgan, 1883; and The Pedal Organ, itsHistory, Design and Control, 1905) andpromoted his work in the firm’s 24-pageillustrated catalogue (dating from about1903) entitled Organs for Cathedral,Church, Concert and Music-Room. He, likeGeorge Ashdown Audsley (1838–1925)and Col. George Dixon (1870–1950),was a progressive; the three of themhad many ideas in common, ideaswhich were to influence the mostsignificant organ-builders of the nextgeneration: Arthur Harrison, HenryWillis III and John Compton.

Casson’s ideas can be summarisedunder the headings (a) provision ofPedal basses for all manual combinations,(b) the enclosure of some Pedal ranks,(c) the deriving an octave higher orlower of stops on one manual fromanother, (d) controlling a three-manual

Laurie Walsh

Details of the painted designs

Organists’ Review August 2011 33

CASSON’S CREATIONS

organ from a two manual console, or a4 [or more]-manual organ from a three,(e) specifying mutation stops (up to theseventh harmonic), (f) the provision offull choruses, (g) the grouping ofcouplers with the departments theyaugment, (h) advanced ideas in stopcontrol, such as pedal ‘helps’, (i)‘melodic’ treble and bass devices, (j)celestes of two ranks – one flat, theother sharp (mentioned in W. & T.Lewis Modern Organ Building, 3rd ed.1939). For a detailed explanation withexamples of most of these concepts, Irefer the reader to Relf Clark’s richlydetailed article (BIOS Journal 26,2002).

Though the Casson Positive is oftento be found, those readers who haveplayed them will know that theiringenious devices – the ‘melodic treble’and ‘melodic bass’ stops – are invariablyout of commission. They will also

concur with me that the touch isunpleasantly heavy and spring-dominated.This was the problem with Casson’stheories – they had to be carried outusing pneumatic action of the mostcomplex and untried type; suchmechanisms soon began to give problemsand, the tuner doubtless scratching hishead in perplexity, were – one by one –disconnected.

Imagine a large organ containing awhole raft of Casson’s ideas and onearrives at an instrument such as ThorpeMalsor – an organ so obscure that noteven Relf Clark’s researches foundreference to it although a few years agoa rather indifferent photograph of it didappear in an organ calendar.

The Positive Organ Company’sbrochure – a copy of which I have infront of me as I write, along with allCasson’s writings – prints a variety oftonal schemes, many of them for organs

with two manuals but with a thirddepartment – a Choir Organ – availableon the Great at the touch of a piston.Few such organs were made; theNPOR lists extant examples at ThorpeMalsor, at St Mary, Churchway,Redgrave, Suffolk (recently restored byRodney Briscoe), St George’s HotelLlandudno (now in Bethania MethodistChapel Eglwysbach Denbighshire(Gwynedd) and pictured in a recentissue of The Organ, at St Mary, Newick,East Sussex (rebuilt 1976) and nolonger extant organs at The ChurchCongress Hall, Pavilion on the Sands,Rhyl Flintshire (Clwyd), and theResidence of Sir Thomas Bazley inBournemouth. However, the organ atThorpe Malsor is typical (for itsspecification, see over).

The organ is said to have beenintended for the east end, but, foundtoo large, was fitted into a west tower

The console

Laurie Walsh

Organists’ Review August 2011 35

arch instead – a very tight squeezewhich left the 16ft Open Bass pipesstanding uniquely and proudly inseparate towers in the front, flankingthe console (which has sloping jambsrather like a Porritt).

Wood of Huddersfield, with thewriter as the church’s consultant, tookthe organ apart in 2010 down to thesmallest piece (many of the metal parts

rusted solid) and painstakingly restoredit to a fully functioning instrument,working out as they did so the functionof numerous tubes and pieces ofmechanism which had beendisconnected over the decades. Theglorious painted pipes and caseworkhave been conserved by Jenny Duffy.The result is an absolute delight to eyeand ear – even if it does retain its

Casson weight and sogginess of touch.As we celebrate the life and work

of this ingenious man, (whosepneumatic inventions of 100+ yearsago could now be much more easilybrought to life electrically) it’s so goodto be able to report that a piece ofhighly complex pneumatic machinery –very nearly a ‘one-off’, made before theera of reliable factory-producedpneumatic actions – is once againfunctioning as its designer intended.

I hope organists will go to see andplay this remarkably beautiful andclever organ, will wonder who wasresponsible for the glorious art-workwhich adorns it, and in so doing, willre-evaluate the ambitions andachievements of Thomas Casson.

Paul Hale is cathedral organist at Southwell,has been Editor of Organists’ Review, andis heavily involved UK-wide as anindependent organ consultant.

Thorpe Malsor specificationCasson

CASSON’S CREATIONS

PEDALIER

Open Bass (metal) 16Sub Bass 16

GREAT ORGAN

Bourdon 16Open Diapason 8Hohl Flute 8Principal 4Wald Flute 4Superoctave 2

CHOIR ORGAN (on Great manual)

Lieblich Gedact 8Salicional 8Flauto Traverso 4

SWELL ORGAN

Geigen 8Claribel 8Viol d’Orchestre 8Gemshorn 4Swell to GreatChoir to GreatSwell to PedalsGreat to PedalsTremulantthumb piston ‘Great’thumb piston ‘Choir’four composition pedalshitch-down swell pedal

AccessoriesThere are five pistons apparently missing (3 on Swell, 2 on Great); probably Pedal ‘helps’ to each department, plus otherswhose function unclear as there is no extant mechanism.

Keyboards, showing missing pistons

Laurie Walsh