The organ in the Durban City Hall was built by
Brindley and Foster of England and arrived in
Durban in 1894 together with Mr Kemp
the organ builder responsible for its erection
in the newly built City Hall. The cost of the instrument
was £3462 including shipping and erection and comprised
three manuals of sixty-one notes and a
pedal board of thirty notes. There were forty stops,
two tremulants and eight couplers with eight combination
pedals and six pneumatic thumb pistons. The action was
tubular pneumatic of the builder’s own design, and patented
in an improved form in 1897. Wind for the organ was provided
by two, two horsepower hydraulic engines driving feeder
bellows, with rotary hand cranks for emergency use.

In 1901 a new, much larger City Hall was built to a design
by Stanley Hudson with internal dimensions of 157 feet long,
95 feet wide and a ceiling height of 60 feet. The internal
capacity of the new hall was 750,000 cubic feet.

The organ was moved into the new City Hall and placed
in a new case of 32ft Open Diapason pipes with teak
woodwork. The effect of the organ in a much larger hall
for which it was not designed was disappointing, and from
this date until 1975 interest and use of the organ declined.

In 1975 a contract was awarded to the firm of Henry Willis
& Sons to rebuild and tonally redesign the organ.
This work was completed by 1977 at a cost of SA Rands
135,000, and the new instrument was opened on the
26th May 1977 by Gillian Weir.

In spite of this work carried out by Willis the organ was
still ineffectual in the City Hall, and numerous wind and
action problems plagued the instrument. The discovery
of borer beetle in the organ in 1996 meant that much of
the lower timber structures of the organ, including all
the reservoirs and the floor of the organ chamber had
to be removed and destroyed.

The work of restoring the instrument is now in progress,
the contract being awarded to the Durban firm of Byrne
Organ Builders. The Consultant in charge of the
restoration is the former:

                                                                                     Continue Phase 1>>