The Living Tradition - A brief history of the Melbourne Town Hall organs and organists from 1869 to 1995 by Thomas Heywood -- continued -- page 5.

The 1872 Hill organ was the first four-manual organ in Australia and remained the largest pipe organ in the country until George Fincham built his magnum opus, a four-manual 85-rank instrument with 4,726 pipes, for the enormous Melbourne Exhibition Building in 1880. Although this organ incorporated several tonal ideas from the Hill organ in the Town Hall, it also included a unique 'Grand Organ' with five flue ranks and two reeds voiced on 10.5 inches wind pressure.

The specification of the Hill organ in the Melbourne Town Hall was typical for a large concert organ of the mid-late nineteenth century and its tonal design was clearly the work of William Hill; it was to become the last organ built by the great English builder. After commencing work on the organ in late 1869, he died in December 1870 at the age of 81. However, he had worked on the Town Hall organ to within two weeks of his death and had undertaken all of the technical drawings ­ an amazing accomplishment for an 81-year old!

The 1872 Hill organ, with 4,373 pipes, 66 speaking stops and 79 ranks spread over five divisions, had bold classically-conceived choruses and rich chorus reeds. 18 ranks of mixtures, including a three-rank Mixture on the Pedal Organ, gave the instrument a brilliant and vibrant sound, and there was an extraordinary wealth of imitative solo stops including two 8' Clarionets and a 4' Oboe Clarion. The enclosed Solo Organ was extremely well developed with 15 ranks; even the most advanced concert organists of the era would have found this division more than satisfactory. Of special note, and quite uncommon for the period, was that the compass of each manual division was a full five octaves, or 61 notes, enabling the latest romantic music to be performed upon the instrument without compromise. The overall height of the instrument was a massive 46 feet, the width was 52 feet 6 inches and the depth a remarkable 24 feet.

Following the opening concert, Robert Mackenzie was awarded the maintenance contract for three years at £120 p.a. which was then handed over to George Fincham for the same amount in 1875. Although Melbourne enjoys a temperate climate for most months of the year, English-built organs have occasionally not been well suited to the Australian climate and within six months of the opening concert, both Solo Organ soundboards were found to be cracking. These were later repaired by George Fincham who also undertook other regular maintenance work on the instrument for the following 30 years.

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