27 Facts About Robert Hope-Jones

Robert Hope-Jones was an English musician who is considered to be the inventor of the theatre organ in the early 20th century.

Robert Hope-Jones thought that a pipe organ should be able to imitate the instruments of an orchestra, and that the console should be detachable from the organ.

Robert Hope-Jones started learning the organ at an early age, and by the age of nine, he was playing for occasional services at St Mary's Church, Eastham.

Robert Hope-Jones subsequently served as churchwarden and was active in many other church offices.

Robert Hope-Jones erected an organ in the Claughton Music Hall and organised and conducted oratorio performances in aid of various church funds, training a large voluntary chorus and orchestra for the purpose.

Robert Hope-Jones became choirmaster and honorary organist of St John's Church, Birkenhead, doing similar work in connection with that institution.

Robert Hope-Jones had voluntary help from choirmen and boys, who worked far into the night, certain of these men and boys later occupying positions with the Hope-Jones Organ Company.

Robert Hope-Jones was sent to the South of France annually to improve his health.

Robert Hope-Jones invented the diaphone, later used by the Canadian Government for its fog signal stations and, in a modified form, adapted to the church organ.

At first Hope-Jones licensed a score of organ-builders to carry out his inventions, but as this proved unsatisfactory, he entered the field as an organ-builder himself, being supported by Thomas Threlfall, chairman of the Royal Academy of Music; J Martin White, Member of Parliament, and other friends.

Robert Hope-Jones built more than 100 church organs in the United Kingdom before emigrating to the United States.

Robert Hope-Jones used expression liberally, sometimes enclosing the entire organ behind thick swell shades for great expressive power.

Robert Hope-Jones used a system of unification which multiplied considerably the number of stops relative to the number of ranks.

Robert Hope-Jones held numerous patents for innovations and improvements in various phases of organ design.

Robert Hope-Jones invented the familiar tongue-shaped stop tablets, the horseshoe-shaped stop rail, and double-touch, all of which became standard features of Wurlitzer and other theatre organs produced in the US and abroad during the silent film era.

Robert Hope-Jones is credited with inventing or developing several voices, including some that are unique to theatre-organ sound, such as the tibia clausa, a large-scaled stopped flute typically played with extreme tremolo; the diaphone, a powerful bass stop with a moving valve-like resonator in the mouth of each pipe; and close imitations of several orchestral instruments.

Robert Hope-Jones there met Jervis Langdon, treasurer of the Elmira Chamber of Commerce, who secured the industry for his city by organizing a corporation to build exclusively Hope-Jones organs.

In early 1908, Robert Hope-Jones was arrested upon complaint of the mother of a boy, age 15, who worked at the organ factory and was molested.

Robert Hope-Jones subsequently paid the $500 fine with company money which deterred future investment and led to the firm's demise.

The patents and plant of the Elmira concern were acquired by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company in April 1910, and Robert Hope-Jones entered its employ, with headquarters at its mammoth factory at North Tonawanda, New York, continuing to carry on the business under his own name.

Robert Hope-Jones was a poor businessman and tended to operate his affairs without regard to profitability.

Robert Hope-Jones built 246 organs between 1887 and 1911 and his company employed 112 workers at its peak.

In 1914, Robert Hope-Jones committed suicide, age 55, by inhaling gas fumes in a hotel in Rochester, New York, some months after leaving the Wurlitzer company.

Robert Hope-Jones had written a suicide note stating that he had legal trouble and that a suit was pending.

Robert Hope-Jones is buried in Elmlawn Cemetery, Kenmore, Erie County, New York.

In 2014, a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings and letters, which had been the property of Robert Hope-Jones, was donated to the Theatre Organ Heritage Centre of the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust in Eccles, Greater Manchester.

The scrapbook has been added to many other Robert Hope-Jones related items in the Heritage Centre.