The Barker lever

AdamSmith · January 6, 2015

And you thought your organ was trouble! For the organ fanatics among us.

The Barker lever

Is there a Father Christmas? The tooth fairy is real, isn't she? The Barker lever was invented by Barker — or was it? David Bridgeman-Sutton puts on his sleuth's cap and reports.

*See footnotes (updated August 2010)

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Charles Spackman Barker

(thanks to Warwick Henshaw)

Was Charles Spackman Barker (1804-79) an accomplished and innovative craftsman — or was he an incompetent, accident-prone organ-builder who "borrowed" the invention that made his name?

"Barker's" lever appeared just when organs were outgrowing the strength of organists. T.C. Lewis estimated that a pressure of several pounds was sometimes needed on each key, while Dr Camidge thought the effort required at York Minster "enough to paralyse" most men. The lever inserted bellows or motors ~ one to each note ~ into tracker action to do the hard work of opening the pallet. Figure 2 shows the general arrangement. All the keys had to do was to move the flap valves (1 and 2, see fig. B ) controlling the flow of wind into and out of each motor (3). The result was a light and rapid touch, even with full organ. There is no "feel" between key and pallet, but then immensely heavy mechanical actions offered little scope for finesse in this respect.

A detailed description of the action will be found here

St Sulpice js

Eventful years followed. Callinet, deranged by worry, took axe and saw to the Cliquot organ of St Sulpice, which his firm was rebuilding. Care of the severely damaged organ was then passed to Cavaillé-Coll and the present renowned instrument — incorporating five Barker machines — was the result.

Fig B.

Barker's lever - thanks to Shoichiro Toyama

(Click image for a larger view)

English builders showed no interest in obtaining licences for its use. Perhaps they suspected plagiarism by Barker: more probably, to avoid royalty payments, they decided to do a spot of plagiarising themselves. Barker departed to Paris, took out a French patent (1839) and negotiated a licence with Cavaillé-Coll, who employed the lever in a number of large instruments. For a short time, Barker worked for Cavaillé, but soon moved to the firm of Dublaine et Callinet.

St Eustache today js

Despite the departure of Callinet and the award of a contract for a new organ at St Eustache, Paris, poor M. Dublaine's troubles weren't over. Barker was the culprit this time, his mishap with a lighted candle destroying the St Eustache instrument when it was only six months old. The firm survived these disasters only because it was purchased by a financier, M. Ducroquet, who then appointed Barker as Manager.

During the 1850s and 60s Dublaine et Callinet again flourished as Ducroquet. Work was steady and gold medals for excellence were awarded at both the Great Exhibition (London 1851) and the Paris Exhibition four years later. The French government conferred the title of Chevalier of Honour on M. Ducroquet, who then retired. Barker worked for a time with another Paris builder, before going into partnership with a M. Verschneider. Their enterprise was brought to a sudden end with the Franco-Prussian war (1870) when their premises were destroyed by artillery barrage.

St John's Edinburgh

(thanks to Stephen Todd)

www.thechoir.co.uk/organ.html

Barker moved to Dublin, where a new organ was wanted for St Mary's Cathedral. Despite his buying in many components from well-established builders, the challenge proved too much for the ageing Barker. Hilborne Roosevelt, the well-known American builder, who was visiting Europe, went to Dublin to try to sort out the muddle: he left shaking his head.

FOOTNOTE August 2010

Dear Sir,

To complete your information on Barker, may I draw your attention on two recent articles:

" Charles Spackman Barker : a reassessment of the earlier years of his career" in BIOS Journal N°33, 2009 (Positif Press, Oxford)

"Apparition et Developpement des Applications de l'Electricité dans l'Orgue au XIXème siècle", with Dr Hemsley- L'Orgue, 2008-II, N° 282, Symetrie (in French....)

http://www.symetrie.com/fr/distribution/revue-orgue/l-orgue/issn_0030-5170_282

(thanks to Philippe d'Anchald (Paris) for this update)

(December, 2006)

The above, based on Dr Hinton's writing, may not be entirely fair to CS Barker. Nicholas Thistlethwaite The Making of the Victorian Organ devotes some space (pp 352-4) to the question, and provides diagrams and text showing the differences between Hamilton's and Barker's arrangements. Whether Barker developed Hamilton's ideas or if the two achieved similar results independently will probably now never be determined. Hinton knew many of those concerned and may have taken a personal dislike to Barker.

It had been suggested that Barker, never a competent workman himself, had been fortunate during his years of success in having skilled foreman and partners. Certainly little of his work has lasted.

In 1835, before anyone had heard of Barker, David Hamilton, had built an organ for St John's Princes Street, Edinburgh, providing it with a pneumatic lever of his own invention. Was this the first-ever application of the principle? He failed to patent his work until 1839, when a model was exhibited in public.

Years later, Hamilton observed that Barker's mechanism bore a strong resemblance to his own, earlier one.

Is it really Hamilton's lever after all?

David Bridgeman-Sutton - 2005

Barker certainly had a commercial success in promoting his scheme, especially in France. Perhaps this compensated for ill-fortune that seemed to dog him; even the bi-centenary of his birth in 1804 was celebrated two years late!!

*More about Barker and his times will be found in Story of the Electric Organ by J.W. Hinton

available from www.bardon-enterprises.co.uk

http://www.nzorgan.com/vandr/barker-lever.htm

AdamSmith · January 6, 2015

16. Pipe Organ
Rules for Pipes
Types of Pipes
Couplers

Mechanical Couplers allow one clavier to control another. They can be tilted between engaged and disengaged positions. Here, the Swell-to-Great and Swell-to-Pedal couplers are engaged, while the Great-to-Pedal is not. This means that pressing a pedal or a key on the Great manual will also activate the corresponding Swell manual key, but that pressing a pedal will not affect the Great manual. ("Great" and "Swell" are traditional names for manual claviers and their associated wind chests.)

Couplers at the same pitch are labeled 8', while those that connect another chest an octave higher are labeled 4' and an octave lower 16', etc.

Barker Lever

Step One of the 19th century revolution in organ design was C. S. Barker's invention, called the "Barker Lever" or mechanical-pneumatic action. A small pallet valve supplies wind not directly to pipe(s) but to a bellows that in turn pulls a larger tracker with amplified force. The metal duct offered increased flexibility in the location of trackers with respect to keys. The organist is no longer in direct mechanical contact with the pallet valve.

Electro-pneumatic action.

The second step in the revloution was electro-pneumatic action. Click on the active numbers to animate the drawing. Yellow regions indicate the presence of air under pressure.

(1) Two bellows for each key are kept inflated within the chest by the main wind supply.

(2) When the key completes an electrical circuit, an armature valve bleeds air from the smaller of these bellows. . .

(3) which in turn controls valves that empty a larger bellows connected to the pallet valve.

The key can now be any distance from the pallet valve(s) it controls. At least one electrical and two pneumatic relays are now interposed between organist and pallet valve. The classic design constraints of Werkprinzip were overturned. An organ could be of any size and shape, and be distributed in any way imaginable within (or even beyond) the room in which the claviers were located.

Combination Action

Combination Action. Click on the numbers to animate the drawing. A lock knob is pulled to program a combination. Corresponding pistons then can move the stop knobs to their programmed positions on command.

(1) Initial condition. (2) Set piston 2 with stop drawn.

(3) Then, the stop is restored by piston 1. (4) And drawn by piston 2.

The Duke Chapel Æolian Organ
The Skinner Organ in St. John the Divine, N.Y.C.
Charles Fisk
John Brombaugh

http://www.phy.duke.edu/~dtl/136126/restrict/after/17/organ/intro2.html