
*** While our historic organ is being restored a temporary electronic instrument is being used. We are most grateful for funding for the restoration from Cloudesley, Jackson Trust, ON Organ Fund, Benefact Trust, an anonymous foundation and thirty individual donations. *** The present organ at St Silas' was originally in St Thomas', Regent Street, London. St Thomas' was to be found in Kingly Street, between Regent Street and Carnaby Street. After St Anne's, Soho was destroyed in the blitz of 1940 its congregation moved to St Thomas', and in 1945 the parish became that of St Anne with St Thomas and St Peter. The author Dorothy L Sayers was famously churchwarden there. It was at St Thomas' that Dr John Birch, subsequently organist of All Saints' Margaret Street, the Temple Church and Chichester Cathedral, held his first organist's post. St Thomas' was made redundant in 1954 and demolished in 1972/73.
In his March 2020 report on the current St Silas' organ, Bruce Buchanan provided a history of the instrument drawing on: A G Jackson's History of St Thomas' Church, Regent Street; the 1963 Survey of London; Nicholas Thistlethwaite's Organ Building in Georgian and Victorian England: The Work of Gray & Davison 1772-1890; The Illustrated London News for 17 May 1856; the records of Henry Willis & Sons Ltd; J Boeringer's Organa Britaninica; the National Pipe Organ Register; and conversations with Maurice Merrell, Director of Bishop & Son Organ Builders, who maintain the instrument. Buchanan's history of the instrument is summarised in the next two paragraphs.
The foundation stone of St Thomas', then known as Tenison's Chapel, was laid in 1702 and an organ was ordered from Price. In either 1750 or 1767 (sources differ) a new organ was acquired from John Byfield, who used part of the casework from the old organ. It had one manual and eight stops. In 1847 Bevington added a short compass Swell Organ and one stop to the Great. In 1856 a new organ was provided by Gray & Davison, reportedly using six ranks from the previous organ and adapting the casework. In total it had either eighteen or twenty-one stops (sources differ) on Great, Swell and Pedal. In 1870 the organ was rebuilt by Gray & Davison, and in 1907 it was rebuilt again by Alfred Kirkland. It is likely that the soundboards and building frame were turned through 90 degrees in this rebuild to enable the console to be fitted on the south side of the casework. A photo of 1911 shows the casework looking recognisably the same as that now at St Silas'. Between 1919 and 1923 the organ was fitted with pneumatic action, reportedly by Noterman. In 1947 Henry Willis III inspected the organ prior to submitting an estimate for work. He said "from the tonal angle the voicing of the pipework is mediocre though not ineffective, this being largely due to the excellent position of the organ". Willis cleaned and overhauled the instrument in 1948 but his recommendations for tonal alterations were not undertaken. No other work seems to have been done before the organ was moved to St Silas' in 1966.
The organ casework (see photo above) is as it was in Regent Street except that the lower front panelling has been completed to fill the space originally concealed by the gallery front at St Thomas', and the original console space on the south side has been filled by fixed wooden louvres. The front pipes have been painted over to conceal the decoration of the original pipes and the bare zinc of 1907. Two pipes inside the case have been left with their original decoration.
John Norman, London Diocesan Organ Advisor, in July 2020, identified the case as dating from the 1907 Kirkland rebuild, of scumbled softwood, and the carvings in oak (the darker wood) as eighteenth century.
The organ was purchased from St Thomas' by St Silas' in 1966 but compromises had to be made during the project due to financial constraints. N P Mander Limited removed it from St Thomas', installing it at the west end of the west gallery next to the rose window, with a new detached console at the south east of the gallery and with electric action from there to the organ case, but inside the case the action appears to have been left unchanged and not refurbished. The layout of the soundboards and their pipes remains south-facing, even though the console is no longer at the south of the case. The Great Large Open Diapason was transferred to the Pedal as a Principal 8', presumably to give the Pedal better definition, and a two-rank Mixture was 'prepared for' on the Great to make up for its loss, but it has never been provided. It was also intended to extend the Pedal Principal down to 16' as an Open Metal, so the existing Open Diapason 16' rank was not brought to St Silas', but the extension has not been made: the Open Metal 16' ends at tenor C. The extra panelling needed was provided by Thomas Cole of Barnsbury. The opening recital was given by Nicholas Jackson on 24 January 1967.
In 1980-81 the Community Hall was created under the original gallery and the gallery was extended eastwards. The organ console was moved to the south-east corner of the gallery extension, presumably to regain an uninterrupted view of the sanctuary. In fact a faculty had been granted in 1980 to move the console to the south east of the church, but this was not done, perhaps because it was found there would be a good enough view of the sanctuary from the south-east of the gallery, and to avoid the problems of time-lag for the player. At some point between 2005 and 2010 the speaking pipes in the facade (the bass of the Great Open Diapason), which had not been connected on installation at St Silas', were finally brought back into use by Bishop's. In 2014 the Swell stop action deteriorated to such an extent that Bishop's installed a new drawstop action. The present specification is as follows.
Manuals CC-c, 61 notes, pedals CCC-f, 30 notes.
Swell Organ: Lieblich Bourdon 16', Open Diapason 8', Gedact 8', Salicional 8', Celeste 8', Principal 4', Mixture II (19 22, Mid C# 12 15), Oboe 8', Cornopean 8', tremulant, octave coupler, balanced Swell pedal.
Great Organ: Open Diapason 8', Stopped Diapason 8', Dulciana 8', Principal 4', Flute 4', Twelfth 2 2/3', Fifteenth 2', Mixture II (prepared for), Clarinet 8', Trumpet 8', Swell to Great coupler.
Pedal Organ: Open Metal 16' (bottom octave prepared for, the rest from Principal), Bourdon 16', Echo Bourdon 16' (from Swell), Principal 8', Flute 8' (from Bourdon), Flute 4' (from Bourdon), Swell to Pedal coupler, Great to Pedal coupler.
Three adjustable thumb pistons to each manual, reversible thumb piston to Great to Pedal. Switch for Great and Pedal combinations combined. Switch for double-touch canceller.
Buchanan reports that the Great Open Diapason, Dulciana, Principal and Fifteenth are possibly 18th century pipes.
Comparing the stop list given in the National Pipe Organ Register's 1950 survey (N18605) with the instrument as it is today (N16842), when it was moved to St Silas' it lost: Swell sub-octave coupler; Great Large Open Diapason 8' (moved to Pedal) and Gamba 8'; Pedal Contra Bass 32' and Open Diapason 16'. It gained the Pedal Flute 4' by extension and the Pedal Open Metal 16' (missing its bottom octave). Earlier stop lists are given in surveys of 1911 (N17380) and 1947 (N17381).
The pitch of the organ is A444 at 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the old Royal Society of Arts or Medium Pitch promulgated in 1860, but the temperature in the gallery in the summer not infrequently reaches 82 degrees Fahrenheit, which makes the organ more than half a semitone above modern orchestral pitch of A440.
What was a good organ in 1856 had become mediocre by 1947 and is now in a poor mechanical state. Installed in 1967 in basically the same condition it was in at St Thomas', it has served St Silas' for 50 years with little more than regular tuning and minor repairs.
All the reeds are out of regulation and have various defects of speech. Several wooden pipes are reliant on temporary repairs to prevent collapse. Some notes are not sounding on different Pedal stops and most notes of the top octave of the Great organ are not working.
The soundboards appear to have been last remade about a century ago. The stop action can be unreliable due to warping of the wood. This can prevent a stop from coming on at all, or can cause tuning issues if the slider does not fully move. The Great Flute 4' has been fixed off to prevent it getting stuck half-on.
The blower is not strong enough for the organ, and the problem is compounded by leaks in the wind supply, especially in dry weather. Full organ with Swell octave coupler runs out of wind and goes flat in big chords. Pneumatic leakage means the Swell pedal does not move the Swell shutters.
As well as using an inadequate blower, there are further issues with the way the organ was installed, due to financial constraints. The south orientation of the organ inside its case means the sound is projecting towards the south wall, not east into the body of the church. It also means the wooden back of the Swell box is not sheltering the pipes from heat from the western rose window. This causes them to go out of tune quickly, though the problem has been partially ameliorated by hanging domestic curtains to cut out direct sunlight. The organ was not changed to modern orchestral pitch at 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and the position of the organ in the highest part of the building where the heat collects means that the pitch can rise to more than half a semitone sharp, making it impossible to play with orchestras and most instrumental soloists.
The effect of the organ is very muted, not only because of the orientation of the soundboards, but also because of the dullness of voicing as noted by Henry Willis in 1947. There was no revoicing when the instrument was moved to St Silas'. Both manuals must be coupled to support even a small congregation singing hymns.
The touch of the manuals of the 1967 detached console is extremely light, and the gap between black notes is irregular, varying between 1.5 cm and 1.8 cm on the Swell. Music has to be carefully and often unusually fingered to avoid smudging adjacent notes.
What preceded the organ brought from St Thomas', Regent Street? The following six paragraphs are based on information from Stewart Taylor, Honorary Secretary of the West Sussex Organists' Association, who in 1964 used to practise on the organ at St Mary's Goring-by-Sea and in 2014 returned there and researched the instrument's history with John Mander of Mander Organs Ltd and Middlesex County Records Office.
Middlesex County Records Office holds a record of a 1937 faculty application for St Silas'. The previous Vicar, the late Revd E J Baker, had left a sum of £260 for ‘the beautifying of the sanctuary' and ‘chancel improvements’. The new Vicar, Revd Ernest Archer, saw this as an opportunity, inter alia, to remove the organ and the choir stalls from the chancel and install them in the west gallery. In his submission to the Diocesan Registrar he said that "the position of the organ and choir stalls were contrary to the original arrangement of the chancel and caused unsightly congestion" and that "owing to dust and damp on the floor of the chancel, caused frequent and expensive cleaning and adjustment, which the finances of so poor a parish were unable to sustain as an alternative to rapid depreciation of the instrument." The move to the west gallery seems a sensible response to the problems described, but it evidently caused a split between the PCC, who supported the proposal, and the churchwardens at the time, as a result of which both churchwardens appear to have been voted out of office. Unfortunately, from the new incumbent’s point of view, the sums left by Father Archer were entrusted to the care of the now deposed churchwardens. One of them, Mr Mason, wrote to the Diocesan Registrar: "I have no intention of entering a formal appearance nor do I write in an obstructionist spirit, but in view of the fact that Mr Fairbrother and myself hold moneys received from the executors of the late Vicar out of which it is proposed to pay for the proposed works, I should be glad to know whether the Chancellor considers that we could properly discharge a liability for works, which so far as I am aware, were never contemplated by the late Vicar". It is thanks to Mr Mason that we have the following information in a letter to the Registrar dated 17 September 1937: "In 1874 an organ was placed in the west gallery. In 1884 a new chancel was added and choir stalls provided, and in 1886 a new organ was placed at the east end of the church". This "new organ" came, according to a letter from Noel Mander, from a private house in the area, and the builder, according to a 1949 note in the notebooks of Charles Drane, was Fincham.
The new Vicar wrote to the Chancellor on 28 September 1937: "If by chance there should be any difficulty in making your decision, I give my word that the whole cost (£68) shall be borne by me". The cost of £68 came from an estimate from E C Macher, organ builder, of 230 Archway Road N6, dated 20 July 1937. The faculty was duly granted but it appears that the organ was subsequently moved on a do-it-yourself basis and Macher was not involved. The church asked Noel Mander's firm to take on the care of the organ in 1946. In November 1946 an estimate was submitted by Mander for what could be called a conservative restoration. Work proposed included the replacement of the Choir dulciana rank, damaged beyond repair when the west window was blown in by a bomb during an air raid. This proposal does not seem to have come to anything.
In 1947 Noel Mander was contacted by a Mr Merries, who was proposing to give an organ recital at St Silas'. Mander wrote: ‘You certainly have been reckless in offering to give a recital at St Silas' Pentonville. The organ is a positive little brute, so dirty that it is impossible to tune properly and with the action in such a state that one really never knows what is going to happen next. I forget the specification but it is about 4 on the Swell, 4 on the Great and 3 on the Choir, the latter of which, however, is completely unusable. We will do the very best we can with it but have only had it on the tuning books during this year. I will certainly tickle it up for you before you give the recital’.
In February 1950 Noel Mander wrote the following report: "The instrument was originally built as a chamber organ for one of the houses in the parish. I should date it about 1853. Its original construction was never particularly good although it seems at one time to have been serviceable. Just before the war the instrument was taken down from its original position in the chancel and re-erected in the gallery, where it still is. This work was not done by an organ builder. It seemed that some enthusiastic member of the congregation with a slight knowledge of amateur organ building did it and the result left a thoroughly unreliable organ. During the blitz of 1941, the west window of the church was blown in, completely wrecking one manual of the organ and this has never been put right although we have managed to get the Swell and the Great in some sort of playing order. Being built for a house where space is very limited, the whole instrument is cramped into the smallest space possible. Many of the pipes have not sufficient room to speak and tuning is extremely difficult. Some of the bass pipes have collapsed under their own weight and except in the case of extreme poverty we would not consider the organ worth expending money on. The space available for an organ in the gallery is limited; only a small organ could be accommodated there."
Things moved on rapidly and on 13 March 1950 Mander was writing to the St Silas' organist with news of a suitable replacement organ. By the 17 March the following advertisement appeared in the Church Times for the Fincham organ at St Silas': "Small three-manual organ for immediate disposal. £150 as standing. Viewed by arrangement with N P Mander, Limited, St Peter's Organ Works, St. Peter's Avenue, London E2" Concerning the replacement organ, Mander wrote: "Structurally, the organ is now in good condition, although no expenditure has been made on things like casework, re-covering of the keys or re-silvering of front pipes... it will just fit in the gallery at St Silas', Pentonville but for safety measures it would be essential for a rail of some sort to be put behind the organ stool... The instrument itself is tracker action and of first-class materials, old fashioned in design but tonally quite good and with considerable power. Mander's letter refers to the replacement organ as "standing in" St John of Jerusalem, Hackney. The specification in his letter is exactly that of St John the Evangelist, Grove Street (now Golding Street), Wapping as given in National Pipe Organ Register record N16578, a two-manual, fifteen-stop instrument built for the Wapping church in 1868/9. In the letter Mander says "the old Blower from Golding Street was scrapped", implying that the organ had been moved from Wapping to Hackney (minus blower). Why? There are two possible reasons. The National Pipe Organ Register record for St John the Evangelist says the church was "closed and used as a store for furniture from closed and bomb damaged churches" circa 1940, and by 1960 the building was in a terrible state due to vandalism. So the organ may have been moved from Wapping to Hackney for safekeeping after the church was closed. National Organ Pipe Register record N16693 says the three-manual, thirty stop 1873 Gray & Davison organ at St John of Jerusalem, Hackney, was destroyed in World War II, and National Pipe Organ Register record V00520 says a three-manual, twenty-eight stop organ was "put together" there in 1949 by Alfred E Davies. So perhaps the much smaller Wapping instrument was moved to Hackney after their previous organ was destroyed, as a stop-gap to provide music until the large 1949 instrument was ready. That would explain why in 1950 Mander said the Wapping organ "standing in" the Hackney church was available to be moved to St Silas'.
By 5 April 1950 the Fincham St Silas' organ had been sold to St Mary’s Goring-by-Sea. The St Silas' Vicar wrote to Noel Mander "I am amazed that anybody should want our organ and quite staggered that they should be prepared to pay as much for it, but then I am not a musician and maybe they have a bargain." Noel Mander moved the instrument, restoring it to good playing order and providing a replacement for the Choir Dulciana. Its specification was:
Swell: Lieblich Gedact 8, Keraulophon 8, Gemshorn 4, Oboe 8
Great: Open Diapason 8, Stopped Diapason 8, Principal 4, Fifteenth 2
Choir: Dulciana 8, Stopped Diapason 8, Lieblich Flute 4
Pedal: Bourdon 16
The National Pipe Organ Register does not record the St John the Evangelist Wapping organ's short stay at St John of Jerusalem or its subsequent stay at St Silas'. Record N16578 says it was built by Gray & Davison in 1868/9, and that it moved to Caterham Hospital at some time after 1933. Record K00072 says it was restored in 1968 by Rushworth and Dreaper, with the display pipes painted turquoise then. A careful comparison of a photo of the organ at the Hospital and one of a previous organ in the west gallery of St Silas', date uncertain (see photo below), shows it to be the same instrument: the display pipes, the wooden horizontal half way up the pipes, the panels beneath the case and the wooden structure to the right of the pipes are all recognisably the same. It seems reasonable to infer that it was then moved to Caterham Hospital around 1966 when the St Thomas' instrument came to St Silas', and a few years later was restored and the pipework painted. The National Pipe Organ Register records that it was moved from Caterham Hospital to the house of Barry Williams, Diocesan Organ Advisor for the Diocese of Oxford, in 2000. The specification when in Wapping was:
In his March 2020 report on the current St Silas' organ, Bruce Buchanan provided a history of the instrument drawing on: A G Jackson's History of St Thomas' Church, Regent Street; the 1963 Survey of London; Nicholas Thistlethwaite's Organ Building in Georgian and Victorian England: The Work of Gray & Davison 1772-1890; The Illustrated London News for 17 May 1856; the records of Henry Willis & Sons Ltd; J Boeringer's Organa Britaninica; the National Pipe Organ Register; and conversations with Maurice Merrell, Director of Bishop & Son Organ Builders, who maintain the instrument. Buchanan's history of the instrument is summarised in the next two paragraphs.
The foundation stone of St Thomas', then known as Tenison's Chapel, was laid in 1702 and an organ was ordered from Price. In either 1750 or 1767 (sources differ) a new organ was acquired from John Byfield, who used part of the casework from the old organ. It had one manual and eight stops. In 1847 Bevington added a short compass Swell Organ and one stop to the Great. In 1856 a new organ was provided by Gray & Davison, reportedly using six ranks from the previous organ and adapting the casework. In total it had either eighteen or twenty-one stops (sources differ) on Great, Swell and Pedal. In 1870 the organ was rebuilt by Gray & Davison, and in 1907 it was rebuilt again by Alfred Kirkland. It is likely that the soundboards and building frame were turned through 90 degrees in this rebuild to enable the console to be fitted on the south side of the casework. A photo of 1911 shows the casework looking recognisably the same as that now at St Silas'. Between 1919 and 1923 the organ was fitted with pneumatic action, reportedly by Noterman. In 1947 Henry Willis III inspected the organ prior to submitting an estimate for work. He said "from the tonal angle the voicing of the pipework is mediocre though not ineffective, this being largely due to the excellent position of the organ". Willis cleaned and overhauled the instrument in 1948 but his recommendations for tonal alterations were not undertaken. No other work seems to have been done before the organ was moved to St Silas' in 1966.
The organ casework (see photo above) is as it was in Regent Street except that the lower front panelling has been completed to fill the space originally concealed by the gallery front at St Thomas', and the original console space on the south side has been filled by fixed wooden louvres. The front pipes have been painted over to conceal the decoration of the original pipes and the bare zinc of 1907. Two pipes inside the case have been left with their original decoration.
John Norman, London Diocesan Organ Advisor, in July 2020, identified the case as dating from the 1907 Kirkland rebuild, of scumbled softwood, and the carvings in oak (the darker wood) as eighteenth century.
The organ was purchased from St Thomas' by St Silas' in 1966 but compromises had to be made during the project due to financial constraints. N P Mander Limited removed it from St Thomas', installing it at the west end of the west gallery next to the rose window, with a new detached console at the south east of the gallery and with electric action from there to the organ case, but inside the case the action appears to have been left unchanged and not refurbished. The layout of the soundboards and their pipes remains south-facing, even though the console is no longer at the south of the case. The Great Large Open Diapason was transferred to the Pedal as a Principal 8', presumably to give the Pedal better definition, and a two-rank Mixture was 'prepared for' on the Great to make up for its loss, but it has never been provided. It was also intended to extend the Pedal Principal down to 16' as an Open Metal, so the existing Open Diapason 16' rank was not brought to St Silas', but the extension has not been made: the Open Metal 16' ends at tenor C. The extra panelling needed was provided by Thomas Cole of Barnsbury. The opening recital was given by Nicholas Jackson on 24 January 1967.
In 1980-81 the Community Hall was created under the original gallery and the gallery was extended eastwards. The organ console was moved to the south-east corner of the gallery extension, presumably to regain an uninterrupted view of the sanctuary. In fact a faculty had been granted in 1980 to move the console to the south east of the church, but this was not done, perhaps because it was found there would be a good enough view of the sanctuary from the south-east of the gallery, and to avoid the problems of time-lag for the player. At some point between 2005 and 2010 the speaking pipes in the facade (the bass of the Great Open Diapason), which had not been connected on installation at St Silas', were finally brought back into use by Bishop's. In 2014 the Swell stop action deteriorated to such an extent that Bishop's installed a new drawstop action. The present specification is as follows.
Manuals CC-c, 61 notes, pedals CCC-f, 30 notes.
Swell Organ: Lieblich Bourdon 16', Open Diapason 8', Gedact 8', Salicional 8', Celeste 8', Principal 4', Mixture II (19 22, Mid C# 12 15), Oboe 8', Cornopean 8', tremulant, octave coupler, balanced Swell pedal.
Great Organ: Open Diapason 8', Stopped Diapason 8', Dulciana 8', Principal 4', Flute 4', Twelfth 2 2/3', Fifteenth 2', Mixture II (prepared for), Clarinet 8', Trumpet 8', Swell to Great coupler.
Pedal Organ: Open Metal 16' (bottom octave prepared for, the rest from Principal), Bourdon 16', Echo Bourdon 16' (from Swell), Principal 8', Flute 8' (from Bourdon), Flute 4' (from Bourdon), Swell to Pedal coupler, Great to Pedal coupler.
Three adjustable thumb pistons to each manual, reversible thumb piston to Great to Pedal. Switch for Great and Pedal combinations combined. Switch for double-touch canceller.
Buchanan reports that the Great Open Diapason, Dulciana, Principal and Fifteenth are possibly 18th century pipes.
Comparing the stop list given in the National Pipe Organ Register's 1950 survey (N18605) with the instrument as it is today (N16842), when it was moved to St Silas' it lost: Swell sub-octave coupler; Great Large Open Diapason 8' (moved to Pedal) and Gamba 8'; Pedal Contra Bass 32' and Open Diapason 16'. It gained the Pedal Flute 4' by extension and the Pedal Open Metal 16' (missing its bottom octave). Earlier stop lists are given in surveys of 1911 (N17380) and 1947 (N17381).
The pitch of the organ is A444 at 60 degrees Fahrenheit, the old Royal Society of Arts or Medium Pitch promulgated in 1860, but the temperature in the gallery in the summer not infrequently reaches 82 degrees Fahrenheit, which makes the organ more than half a semitone above modern orchestral pitch of A440.
What was a good organ in 1856 had become mediocre by 1947 and is now in a poor mechanical state. Installed in 1967 in basically the same condition it was in at St Thomas', it has served St Silas' for 50 years with little more than regular tuning and minor repairs.
All the reeds are out of regulation and have various defects of speech. Several wooden pipes are reliant on temporary repairs to prevent collapse. Some notes are not sounding on different Pedal stops and most notes of the top octave of the Great organ are not working.
The soundboards appear to have been last remade about a century ago. The stop action can be unreliable due to warping of the wood. This can prevent a stop from coming on at all, or can cause tuning issues if the slider does not fully move. The Great Flute 4' has been fixed off to prevent it getting stuck half-on.
The blower is not strong enough for the organ, and the problem is compounded by leaks in the wind supply, especially in dry weather. Full organ with Swell octave coupler runs out of wind and goes flat in big chords. Pneumatic leakage means the Swell pedal does not move the Swell shutters.
As well as using an inadequate blower, there are further issues with the way the organ was installed, due to financial constraints. The south orientation of the organ inside its case means the sound is projecting towards the south wall, not east into the body of the church. It also means the wooden back of the Swell box is not sheltering the pipes from heat from the western rose window. This causes them to go out of tune quickly, though the problem has been partially ameliorated by hanging domestic curtains to cut out direct sunlight. The organ was not changed to modern orchestral pitch at 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and the position of the organ in the highest part of the building where the heat collects means that the pitch can rise to more than half a semitone sharp, making it impossible to play with orchestras and most instrumental soloists.
The effect of the organ is very muted, not only because of the orientation of the soundboards, but also because of the dullness of voicing as noted by Henry Willis in 1947. There was no revoicing when the instrument was moved to St Silas'. Both manuals must be coupled to support even a small congregation singing hymns.
The touch of the manuals of the 1967 detached console is extremely light, and the gap between black notes is irregular, varying between 1.5 cm and 1.8 cm on the Swell. Music has to be carefully and often unusually fingered to avoid smudging adjacent notes.
What preceded the organ brought from St Thomas', Regent Street? The following six paragraphs are based on information from Stewart Taylor, Honorary Secretary of the West Sussex Organists' Association, who in 1964 used to practise on the organ at St Mary's Goring-by-Sea and in 2014 returned there and researched the instrument's history with John Mander of Mander Organs Ltd and Middlesex County Records Office.
Middlesex County Records Office holds a record of a 1937 faculty application for St Silas'. The previous Vicar, the late Revd E J Baker, had left a sum of £260 for ‘the beautifying of the sanctuary' and ‘chancel improvements’. The new Vicar, Revd Ernest Archer, saw this as an opportunity, inter alia, to remove the organ and the choir stalls from the chancel and install them in the west gallery. In his submission to the Diocesan Registrar he said that "the position of the organ and choir stalls were contrary to the original arrangement of the chancel and caused unsightly congestion" and that "owing to dust and damp on the floor of the chancel, caused frequent and expensive cleaning and adjustment, which the finances of so poor a parish were unable to sustain as an alternative to rapid depreciation of the instrument." The move to the west gallery seems a sensible response to the problems described, but it evidently caused a split between the PCC, who supported the proposal, and the churchwardens at the time, as a result of which both churchwardens appear to have been voted out of office. Unfortunately, from the new incumbent’s point of view, the sums left by Father Archer were entrusted to the care of the now deposed churchwardens. One of them, Mr Mason, wrote to the Diocesan Registrar: "I have no intention of entering a formal appearance nor do I write in an obstructionist spirit, but in view of the fact that Mr Fairbrother and myself hold moneys received from the executors of the late Vicar out of which it is proposed to pay for the proposed works, I should be glad to know whether the Chancellor considers that we could properly discharge a liability for works, which so far as I am aware, were never contemplated by the late Vicar". It is thanks to Mr Mason that we have the following information in a letter to the Registrar dated 17 September 1937: "In 1874 an organ was placed in the west gallery. In 1884 a new chancel was added and choir stalls provided, and in 1886 a new organ was placed at the east end of the church". This "new organ" came, according to a letter from Noel Mander, from a private house in the area, and the builder, according to a 1949 note in the notebooks of Charles Drane, was Fincham.
The new Vicar wrote to the Chancellor on 28 September 1937: "If by chance there should be any difficulty in making your decision, I give my word that the whole cost (£68) shall be borne by me". The cost of £68 came from an estimate from E C Macher, organ builder, of 230 Archway Road N6, dated 20 July 1937. The faculty was duly granted but it appears that the organ was subsequently moved on a do-it-yourself basis and Macher was not involved. The church asked Noel Mander's firm to take on the care of the organ in 1946. In November 1946 an estimate was submitted by Mander for what could be called a conservative restoration. Work proposed included the replacement of the Choir dulciana rank, damaged beyond repair when the west window was blown in by a bomb during an air raid. This proposal does not seem to have come to anything.
In 1947 Noel Mander was contacted by a Mr Merries, who was proposing to give an organ recital at St Silas'. Mander wrote: ‘You certainly have been reckless in offering to give a recital at St Silas' Pentonville. The organ is a positive little brute, so dirty that it is impossible to tune properly and with the action in such a state that one really never knows what is going to happen next. I forget the specification but it is about 4 on the Swell, 4 on the Great and 3 on the Choir, the latter of which, however, is completely unusable. We will do the very best we can with it but have only had it on the tuning books during this year. I will certainly tickle it up for you before you give the recital’.
In February 1950 Noel Mander wrote the following report: "The instrument was originally built as a chamber organ for one of the houses in the parish. I should date it about 1853. Its original construction was never particularly good although it seems at one time to have been serviceable. Just before the war the instrument was taken down from its original position in the chancel and re-erected in the gallery, where it still is. This work was not done by an organ builder. It seemed that some enthusiastic member of the congregation with a slight knowledge of amateur organ building did it and the result left a thoroughly unreliable organ. During the blitz of 1941, the west window of the church was blown in, completely wrecking one manual of the organ and this has never been put right although we have managed to get the Swell and the Great in some sort of playing order. Being built for a house where space is very limited, the whole instrument is cramped into the smallest space possible. Many of the pipes have not sufficient room to speak and tuning is extremely difficult. Some of the bass pipes have collapsed under their own weight and except in the case of extreme poverty we would not consider the organ worth expending money on. The space available for an organ in the gallery is limited; only a small organ could be accommodated there."
Things moved on rapidly and on 13 March 1950 Mander was writing to the St Silas' organist with news of a suitable replacement organ. By the 17 March the following advertisement appeared in the Church Times for the Fincham organ at St Silas': "Small three-manual organ for immediate disposal. £150 as standing. Viewed by arrangement with N P Mander, Limited, St Peter's Organ Works, St. Peter's Avenue, London E2" Concerning the replacement organ, Mander wrote: "Structurally, the organ is now in good condition, although no expenditure has been made on things like casework, re-covering of the keys or re-silvering of front pipes... it will just fit in the gallery at St Silas', Pentonville but for safety measures it would be essential for a rail of some sort to be put behind the organ stool... The instrument itself is tracker action and of first-class materials, old fashioned in design but tonally quite good and with considerable power. Mander's letter refers to the replacement organ as "standing in" St John of Jerusalem, Hackney. The specification in his letter is exactly that of St John the Evangelist, Grove Street (now Golding Street), Wapping as given in National Pipe Organ Register record N16578, a two-manual, fifteen-stop instrument built for the Wapping church in 1868/9. In the letter Mander says "the old Blower from Golding Street was scrapped", implying that the organ had been moved from Wapping to Hackney (minus blower). Why? There are two possible reasons. The National Pipe Organ Register record for St John the Evangelist says the church was "closed and used as a store for furniture from closed and bomb damaged churches" circa 1940, and by 1960 the building was in a terrible state due to vandalism. So the organ may have been moved from Wapping to Hackney for safekeeping after the church was closed. National Organ Pipe Register record N16693 says the three-manual, thirty stop 1873 Gray & Davison organ at St John of Jerusalem, Hackney, was destroyed in World War II, and National Pipe Organ Register record V00520 says a three-manual, twenty-eight stop organ was "put together" there in 1949 by Alfred E Davies. So perhaps the much smaller Wapping instrument was moved to Hackney after their previous organ was destroyed, as a stop-gap to provide music until the large 1949 instrument was ready. That would explain why in 1950 Mander said the Wapping organ "standing in" the Hackney church was available to be moved to St Silas'.
By 5 April 1950 the Fincham St Silas' organ had been sold to St Mary’s Goring-by-Sea. The St Silas' Vicar wrote to Noel Mander "I am amazed that anybody should want our organ and quite staggered that they should be prepared to pay as much for it, but then I am not a musician and maybe they have a bargain." Noel Mander moved the instrument, restoring it to good playing order and providing a replacement for the Choir Dulciana. Its specification was:
Swell: Lieblich Gedact 8, Keraulophon 8, Gemshorn 4, Oboe 8
Great: Open Diapason 8, Stopped Diapason 8, Principal 4, Fifteenth 2
Choir: Dulciana 8, Stopped Diapason 8, Lieblich Flute 4
Pedal: Bourdon 16
The National Pipe Organ Register does not record the St John the Evangelist Wapping organ's short stay at St John of Jerusalem or its subsequent stay at St Silas'. Record N16578 says it was built by Gray & Davison in 1868/9, and that it moved to Caterham Hospital at some time after 1933. Record K00072 says it was restored in 1968 by Rushworth and Dreaper, with the display pipes painted turquoise then. A careful comparison of a photo of the organ at the Hospital and one of a previous organ in the west gallery of St Silas', date uncertain (see photo below), shows it to be the same instrument: the display pipes, the wooden horizontal half way up the pipes, the panels beneath the case and the wooden structure to the right of the pipes are all recognisably the same. It seems reasonable to infer that it was then moved to Caterham Hospital around 1966 when the St Thomas' instrument came to St Silas', and a few years later was restored and the pipework painted. The National Pipe Organ Register records that it was moved from Caterham Hospital to the house of Barry Williams, Diocesan Organ Advisor for the Diocese of Oxford, in 2000. The specification when in Wapping was:

Swell: Bourdon 16, Open Diapason 8, Keraulophon 8, Stopped Diapason 8, Principal 4, Fifteenth 2, Cornopean 8
Great: Open Diapason 8, Dulciana 8, Stopped Diapason 8, Principal 4, Flute 4, Fifteenth 2, Gamba 8
Pedal: Bourdon 16
By the time it was at Caterham Hospital there was no Fifteenth on the Swell.
To summarise:
1863 - the church opens, but it is not known whether an organ was provided
1874 - an organ was installed in the west gallery
1886 - replaced by an organ at the east end of the church built by Fincham in about 1853 for a house in the parish
Between 1937 and 1941 - moved to the west gallery (and now at St Mary Goring-by-Sea)
1950 - replaced by Mander with the Gray & Davison 1868/9 organ of St John the Evangelist, Wapping after its short stay at St John of Jerusalem, Hackney (now at Barry Williams' house)
1966 - replaced by Mander with the organ from St Thomas', Regent Street.
Great: Open Diapason 8, Dulciana 8, Stopped Diapason 8, Principal 4, Flute 4, Fifteenth 2, Gamba 8
Pedal: Bourdon 16
By the time it was at Caterham Hospital there was no Fifteenth on the Swell.
To summarise:
1863 - the church opens, but it is not known whether an organ was provided
1874 - an organ was installed in the west gallery
1886 - replaced by an organ at the east end of the church built by Fincham in about 1853 for a house in the parish
Between 1937 and 1941 - moved to the west gallery (and now at St Mary Goring-by-Sea)
1950 - replaced by Mander with the Gray & Davison 1868/9 organ of St John the Evangelist, Wapping after its short stay at St John of Jerusalem, Hackney (now at Barry Williams' house)
1966 - replaced by Mander with the organ from St Thomas', Regent Street.

Piano
The piano at Saint Silas is a baby grand Geissler. Its attractive sunburst music stand suggests it is probably from the 1920s or 1930s. It was given to Saint Silas by All Saints, Margaret Street and was restored in late 2005 in memory of Nancy Brock.
The Yamaha P250 Digital Piano, with its wide variety of voices, is used for processions which end at the All Saints' altar in the Community Hall, for Christmas communion improvisations, and on other special occasions. It was given in April 2006 by a kind and generous supporter of the music at Saint Silas.
The piano at Saint Silas is a baby grand Geissler. Its attractive sunburst music stand suggests it is probably from the 1920s or 1930s. It was given to Saint Silas by All Saints, Margaret Street and was restored in late 2005 in memory of Nancy Brock.
The Yamaha P250 Digital Piano, with its wide variety of voices, is used for processions which end at the All Saints' altar in the Community Hall, for Christmas communion improvisations, and on other special occasions. It was given in April 2006 by a kind and generous supporter of the music at Saint Silas.