The coming year offers unique opportunities for us to showcase our region, building on Lonely Planet singling The South of Scotland out as one the top destinations in the world to visit, not to mention the launch of the new Coast to Coast cycle route in the summer which is set to be a huge draw for cycling enthusiasts.

Between them, they constrained Hope-Jones to a more commercial discipline and he produced a number of instruments from 1911 under the generic title of the Wurlitzer Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra. These contained the essential features that characterised Wurlitzer organs until the cease of production in the late 1930’s; Wurlitzer’s early sales methods followed those of Hope-Jones, with extravagant advertising testimonials extolling the tonal perfection of instruments that had yet to be installed, never mind play a note of music. David Ibbotson, chair of the SSDA, said: “On behalf of the SSDA Board, we are delighted to welcome David Hope-Jones to the role of chief executive.About the same time, a gimlet was forced through the electric cable of a Hope-Jones organ at St Mary's Church, Hendon, London. [6] Shortly afterwards the cable connecting the console with the Hope-Jones organ at Ormskirk Parish Church, Lancashire, was cut through. At St Modwen's, Burton upon Trent, [7] sample pipes from each of his special stops were stolen. [2] To answer that I guess one needs to have played them. Unfortunately that's been next to impossible for a very long time. Between 1890 and 1914, the patent offices of the U.K. and U.S.A. granted Mr. Hope-Jones 45 patents and in 1892 he formed his own company, The Hope-Jones Electric Organ Company of Birkenhead to produce electrical organ components and also to act as a licensing company for patent usage. He built with his staff a total of 246 organs between 1887 and 1911. About 150 of these organs were built for churches. Seemingly most of these organs are now lost, but apparently many contained innovations that were used in the Theatre Organs that he built. Jonathan Ortloff (December 2014) "A Magnet for Every Pipe: Robert Hope-Jones, the Invention of Unification, and Its Application in the Theater Organ", Journal of American Organbuilding, Vol. 29, No. 4 pp.8–15

Robert Hope-Jones was an electrical engineer who worked for the Lancashire and Cheshire Telephone Company. He Patented many mechanisms in connection with the operation of telephone systems. He was also a talented amateur musician, having played the organ from an early age and was organist and choirmaster of St. John’s Church in Birkenhead at the age of 17, where he went on to apply his engineering skills to developing a series of revolutionary amendments to the organ. A huge advance was now offered in the form of the ‘Wurlitzer Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra’ (later known just as the ‘Wurlitzer Unit Organ’) – this could provide a fullness of sound similar to an orchestra, with a variety of instrumental sounds and effects, but under the control of just one musician, who could watch the screen and match the music to the action in the film, just as a pianist would.

The “Mighty” Wurlitzer still has the ‘X Factor’

Listen to Mr. Richmond playing the Hammond Organ during a Music While You Workprogramme for the BBCin 1963 I’m sure there must have been other, and possibly also large, organs by H-J during this early period in USA, but that has to be a matter for further research.. When installed in the Davenport, the pipe ranks were displaced between two under-stage chambers and comprise – Tibia, Tromba, Flute, String+Celest, Diapason, and Krumet. A separate room contained the Discus blower driven by a 4hp three-phase electric motor and the non-operable (at time of removal) type 2 Melotone unit. Perhaps the most significant development as regards the theatre organ was his patented ‘Unit System’. This made the most of the capabilities of electric action and through a complex relay system enabled the same stops to be drawn on different manuals. By ‘extending’ a rank of pipes a range of different pitched stops could be derived from the extended rank by electrical switching rather than the traditional system of having a separate rank of 61 pipes for each stop, with a consequent saving in both cost and space required..