In the pioneer organ built by Hope-Jones in Birkenhead, England (about 1887), a sudden advance was made. That organ contains no less than 19 couplers. Not only did he provide sub-octave and super-octave couplers freely, but he even added a Swell Sub-quint to Great coupler!
Octave couplers are now provided by almost all builders.
Though condemned by many theorists, there is no doubt that in practice they greatly add to the resources of the instruments to which they are attached. We know of small organs where the electric action has been introduced for no other reason than that of facilitating the use of octave couplers, which are now a mere matter of wiring and give no additional weight to the touch.
Hope-Jones appears to have led in adding extra pipes to the wind-chest, which were acted upon by the top octave of the octave couplers, thus giving the organist a complete scale to the full extent of the keyboards. He made the practice common in England, and the Austin Company adopted it on his joining them in this country. The plan has since become more or leas common. This is the device we see specified in organ builders' catalogues as the "extended wind-chest," and explains why the stops have 73 pipes to 61 notes on the keyboard. An octave coupler without such extension is incomplete and is no more honest than a stop which only goes down to Tenor C.
[1] The researches of Dr. Gabriel Bédart, Professeur agrégé Physiologie in the University of Lille, France, a learned and enthusiastic organ connoisseur, have brought to light the fact that the first tubular pneumatic action was constructed by Moitessier in France in 1835. It was designed upon the exhaust principle.
[2] Dr. Gauntlett's idea was to play all the organs shown in the Great Exhibition in London, in 1851, from one central keyboard. He proposed to place an electro-magnet inside the wind-chest under each pallet, which would have required an enormous amount of electric current. The idea was never carried out. This plan seems also to have occurred to William Wilkinson, the organ-builder of Kendal, as far back as 1862, but, after some experiments, was abandoned. An organ constructed on similar lines was actually built by Karl G. Weiglé, of Echterdingen, near Stuttgart, Germany, in 1870, and although not at all a success, he built another on the same principle which was exhibited at the Vienna Exhibition in 1873. Owing to the powerful current necessary to open the Pallets, the contacts fused and the organ was nearly destroyed by fire on several occasions.
[3] Sir John Stainer, in the 1889 edition of his "Dictionary of Musical Terms," dismisses the electric action in a paragraph of four lines as of no practical importance. In that same year the writer asked Mr. W. T. Best to come over and look at the organ in St. John's Church, Birkenhead, which was then beginning to be talked about, and he laughed at the idea that any good could come out of an electric action. He was a man of wide experience who gave recitals all over the country and was thoroughly acquainted with the attempts that had been made up to that time. He did not want to see any more electric organs.
[4] Console—the keyboards, pedals and stop action by which the organ is played; sometimes detached from the instrument.
[5] from Matthews' "Handbook of the Organ," p. 52 et seq.
[6] Organ built by the Ernest M. Skinner Co.