Better Pipe Organ Database

Richard Sugden Williams (& Sons) (1898)

St. Paul's Church [Basilica]
83 Power Street
Toronto, ON, CA

OHS convention: 2023

Images

2022-06-15 - Organ in rear gallery (Photograph from an archival source: 2023 OHS Handbook, Len Levasseur, submitted by Paul R. Marchesano/Paul R. Marchesano)

2024-03-01 - Organ in rear gallery (Jeremy Tingle/Jeremy Tingle)

2024-03-01 - Console and builder's name (Jeremy Tingle/Jeremy Tingle)

2024-03-01 - Left stopjamb (Swell and Pedal) (Jeremy Tingle/Jeremy Tingle)

2024-03-01 - Right stopjamb (Great) (Jeremy Tingle/Jeremy Tingle)

2024-03-01 - View of nave from console (Jeremy Tingle/Jeremy Tingle)

Consoles

Main

2 manuals
22 stops
27 registers
3 divisions
Key action Type: Mechanical (Balanced Tracker)
Stop action Type: Mechanical
Pedal compass: 30 notes
Expression Type: Balanced Expression Shoes/Pedals (Details Unknown)

Notes

2004-10-30 - Status Note: There 1997 -Database Manager

2004-10-30 - Restored Kney 1977. Playable 1997, but not used. -Database Manager

2013-05-03 - Updated through online information from John Speller. -- Organ restored by Gabriel Kney, 1977. -Database Manager

2023-08-11 - In 1898 the R.S. Williams & Sons organ was installed. The organ may have been built before this date for another church and moved to St. Paul’s in 1898. Williams’ retail business operated in Toronto from 1879, when it was renamed R.S. Williams & Son.[Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, 2nd ed., edited by Helmut Kallman and Gilles Potvin (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 1002.] The name on the console add “s” (“Sons”), a late form of the name, so it is clear that the organ was built after 1879 and before 1898. No documents have been found relating to the purchase of the organ. The Williams factory was in Oshawa, where the firm built many thousands of pianos—possibly 67,000 instruments—before it succumbed to the Great Depression in 1929. All the other Toronto Williams organs have been rebuilt or removed. -- 2023 OHS Handbook -Paul R. Marchesano

Stoplist

Stoplist friom website http://www.uquebec.ca/musique/orgues/canada/torontospb.html Source: Source not recorded Date not recorded

St. Paul's Basilica (Roman Catholic), Toronto, ON

Richard Sugden Williams & Sons, ca. 1898 

Great: 
8' Open Diapason
8' Dulciana
8' Salicional
8' Melodia
4' Principal
4' Flute d' Amour
2 2/3' Twelfth
2' Fifteenth
1 1/3' Mixture I-IV
8' Trumpet

Swell: (enclosed)
16' Bourdon (TC)
8' Open Diapason
8' Stopped Diapason
8' Concert Flute (1-12 from Op. Diap.)
8' Aeoline
8' Vox Celeste (TC)
4' Harmonic Flute
4' Violina
2' Harmonic Piccolo
8' Oboe - Bassoon
8' Vox Humana
8' Tremulant

Pedal:
16' Open Diapason
16' Bourdon

Couplers:
Swell to Great
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal

Accessories:
Balanced Swell Pedal
3 composition pedals to Great
2 composition pedals to Swell


 [Received from John Speller 2013-05-04.]

Websites

St. Paul\'s Basilica, Toronto, ON. - Photograph, history, stoplist (Check Internet Archive, archive.is)