George Fincham

George Fincham (20 August 1828 – 21 December 1910) was an organ builder active in Australia.

George Fincham
Born(1828-08-20)20 August 1828.
London, England
Died21 December 1910(1910-12-21) (aged 82)
Melbourne, Australia
OccupationOrgan builder
Notable work
The organ at the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne
George Fincham & Sons
IndustryPipe organ design and building.
Pipe organ restoration
Founded1862
HeadquartersRichmond
Melbourne, Australia
Key people
George Fincham
ProductsPipe organs

Fincham was born in London; his father (Jonathan George Fincham) and grandfather were both organ builders and so it is not surprising he practised this trade himself. He was apprenticed in 1842–49 to the London organ builder Henry Bevington, and then worked as a foreman for James Bishop & Son. Fincham emigrated to Australia in 1852 and started working as an organ tuner and repairer 113 Queen Street in Melbourne.[1] In 1853 he went to the diggings at Ballarat. He returned to Melbourne in 1854 and worked as a builder on the Spencer Street railway station. Within ten years of his arrival in Australia he had raised sufficient funds to equip a workshop and buy stock to begin organ building as George Fincham & Sons. Also by this time churches had funds for pipe organs and interest in organ music was growing, helped by the arrival of organists such as Charles Horsley, David Lee and the Revd George Torrance in Australia. The organ building business grew and by 1904 he had a branches in Adelaide and Sydney, and agents in Perth and Brisbane.[2]

Altogether he built about 200 organs for cathedrals and churches and supplied pipe work and parts to organ builders throughout Australasia. His integrity and the quality of the organs he built overcame the prejudice towards colonial work. He was outstanding among Australian organ builders for his skill, his business ability and his readiness to keep pace with modern trends. He patented many improvements; most of the organs he built had mechanical action and from 1886 some had tubular-pneumatic.

Fincham died in Melbourne in 1910. His company, continued by his sons and grandsons, completed many projects in more than a century of organ building. It closed down in February 2006.

Notable organs
The organ at St Mary Star of the Sea, West Melbourne
Wooden casing designed by Robert J Haddon 1906 for George Fincham Organ at Malvern Presbyterian Church, Melbourne

His notable instruments include:

gollark: I read somewhere that the really low price is more of a marketing gimmick, hence why lots of places have a quantity limit, and the price of the version with headers reflects the actual price more accurately.
gollark: It *can work* as one, sure. Although so can ESP32 microcontroller things, which might be cheaper.
gollark: My tab count has been beaten? Troubling.
gollark: I can even get away with 700 open tabs with some fraction of my 8GB of RAM. Obviously not all of them are actively loaded and running.
gollark: Why are you showing screenshots of an image open in something instead of just uploading said image?

See also
  • List of organ builders

References
  1. "Peter McBride Antique and Old Tools". www.petermcbride.com. Retrieved 13 November 2009.
  2. Henwood 1972.
  3. "George Fincham". www.finchams.org. Archived from the original on 25 February 2013. Retrieved 13 November 2009.
  4. Carpenter, Peter G. (1989). Parish of St. Francis Xavier, Frankston, 1889-1989: Centenary. Frankston: St. Francis Xavier's Centenary Booklet Committee. Retrieved 11 September 2015
  5. "Major Australian Organ Destroyed by Fire". www.ohta.org.au. Retrieved 13 November 2009.
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