Terrace - St. Peter's Anglican Cathedral, North Adelaide, Australia

St. Peter's Anglican Cathedral
cnr King William Road & Pennington Terrace, North Adelaide
Australia(AUS)

St Peter's Cathedral received its first organ in 1876. Built by Bishop & Son, the organ contained 29 stops distributed over 3 manuals and pedals, being installed in what later became the Sacristy. With the addition of the present Nave, despite its substantial size it was considered inadequate for the enlarged building. The organ was removed to St Augustine's Anglican Church in suburban Unley where it survives to this day.

Development work on the Cathedral was funded from an Appeal launched in 1925 and from which funds were made available to purchase a new organ.

The new instrument was dedicated at an opening recital on Sunday, July 6th, 1930, at which time a special collection attempted to make up a funding shortfall of £500, this despite the absence of the organ's casework and several stops.

The organ is significant in the history of Australian organ-building, since its commission coincided with several other major contracts won by HN & B (notably the replacement of the organ - destroyed by fire on February 1st, 1925 - in the Melbourne Town Hall, followed between 1925 and 1930 by contracts for new organs in Christchurch Cathedral, Christchurch City Hall, Dunedin Town Hall and the Presbyterian Assembly Hall in Sydney - now in Scotch College, Melbourne), and which justified the British parent company's establishment - in August 1926 - of an outpost factory in Clifton Hill (Melbourne) which survived until 1974. While its metal pipes were imported from England, as much as possible of the balance of the instrument was constructed locally.