The purpose of this paper is to record the recent research that has been carried out into the world of Robert Hope-Jones and the people who lived and worked in his environment and whom he met during the course of some of the work he did during his organ manufacturing time in Great Britain before he emigrated to the United States. The  Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust has been troubled for some time that almost all of the original pipe organs built in Britain by Hope-Jones have been totally rebuilt, dramatically modified over the years by various organ builders, or have been scrapped.  

Since its foundation in 1968 the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust has been acutely aware of its close proximity to the birthplace of Robert Hope-Jones and to the area at Birkenhead on the Wirral in Cheshire where he started his ground breaking work on pipe organs. Also, because one of Trust's first vice presidents was Farny Wurlitzer, (see appendix) who was one of the persons in control of the Wurlitzer Factory at the time Hope-Jones was working there, we had a duty to preserve as much of this Heritage as possible, before it was too late and was all lost for ever to become something that one only reads about in books.

Robert Hope-Jones, the third son of William Hope-Jones, was born at Hooton Grange, Eastham on the Wirral, Cheshire, in 1859. The birth was recorded by John Jones the local registrar as entry number 317, and tells us that Robert was born on the "Ninth February 1859, at Hooton Grange, Eastham". The birth wasn't officially recorded until a month later on the 11th March 1859 (see figure 1). Robert's Baptism is recorded as taking place on the 27th March 1859 (see figure 2).

Hooton Grange was quite a spectacular mansion which was built for Robert's father William, a person whose occupation is recorded as "Landed Proprietor" or in other words he was quite wealthy. The Mansion was designed and erected under the control of Architect Charles Verelst. It was designed in a Tudor style of Architecture and was built in stone and light coloured brick. The mansion had a long driveway with a Lodge at each of its two entrances. Hooton Grange was about halfway between Chester and Birkenhead.

The architect, Charles Verelst was born in 1814 as Charles Reed, who at some time later and for an unknown reason, changed his surname to Verelst. He was also the architect for Saint John's Church in Birkenhead which is famous in its own right as being the home of a Robert Hope-Jones pipe organ, once thought to be the first pipe organ Robert built, but now known to be the second such organ. The later Saint John's organ having an electric action designed to what afterwards became British Patent number 18,073 and was officially taken out in 1891.

While we were on this site looking at some stonework, an old gentleman came up and asked what the interest was. On replying it was found out that he had taken a number of photographs in the early 1950's just before the house was knocked down (see figure 4). We were fortunate to be given a set of these photographs and although their quality was not too good the full splendour of the building could be seen. From other research in searching archives around the country it would now appear that these are the only surviving pictures of Hooton Grange. Using a bit of modern computer technology it has now been possible to restore some of these photographs to give a view of Hooton Grange in its former glory (see figure 5).

During our research investigating the design of Hooton Grange we located another similar mansion at 26 - 28 Palm Grove in Oxton, Birkenhead, designed by the same architect, Charles Verelst, and looking very similar to Hooton Grange (see figure 6).

Directly opposite 26 - 28 Palm Grove was originally a house with the name "Montana" now rebuilt as apartments. This house was once the home of a certain Thomas Brassey. Brassey was one of the unsung heroes of Victorian times and he worked for Charles Verelst as a Contractor. Brassey could be claimed to be the world's first contractor. He built quite a number of these large houses for Verelst and he also built Saint John's Church, Birkenhead.

Thomas Brassey, born on 7th November 1805, was the son of John and Elizabeth Brassey. The Family owned and farmed some 300 acres of farmland near Chester in Cheshire. Thomas was educated at a school in Chester and at the age of sixteen he became an apprentice to a surveyor. When the apprenticeship finished he became a partner in the business. Along the way Brassey was involved in a quarry on the Wirral and then started in the brick making business where he became well known for his light coloured bricks. It was these light coloured bricks that were used in the construction of Hooton Grange and which gave the mansion its spectacular looks.

Brassey became much more famous for his railway construction work. This all started when he was building the Chester Railway Station main line terminal and was introduced to the famous railway engineer George Stevenson. Stevenson said he was greatly impressed by Brassey's contracting work and as a result employed Brassey's company to lay railway lines for him. It can be said that Brassey laid more railway lines than possibly any other contractor. At this time Brassey employed some 85,000 men and when he died in December 1870 in his will left £3,200,000.

  Thomas Brassey's achievements included most of the railway lines laid in Britain and railways in France, Paris Rouen railway 1841, Spain, Barcelona and Mataro 1848, Holland 1852, Italy, Turin 1854, Eastern Bengal 1858, Mauritius 1862, and Australia, Queensland 1863, plus many others. Some of Thomas Brassey's descendants still live in Queensland Australia.

  Just a short distance from "Montana" on Palm Grove is a road called Charlesville which has a junction with a road called Reedville, both roads named after Charles Verelst (Reed). Interestingly, at this junction stands the first Parsonage of Saint John's Church Birkenhead.

  At this point in our research it was imperative that space was made available to put on public view our Hope-Jones Heritage items and Historic findings. So in 2002 the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust decided that premises had to be found to create this small museum for the benefit of the interested public. An old Sunday school was found and purchased in Eccles on the western side of Manchester with sufficient space to build a small theatre and with space to create our very special Museum.

  When the official deeds for this Sunday School were first viewed an interesting fact came to light. The Sunday School was built in 1907 on land originally owned by Sir Charles Legh of Adlington.  Sir Charles Legh lived at Adlington Hall in Cheshire where his descendants still live today. This hall has a piece of unique heritage in that it houses the oldest playable pipe organ in Britain. The organ was built sometime just after 1500. This was an organ on which George Frederic Handel played and composed some of his music and in the safe at Adlington Hall is still held an original handwritten manuscript by Handel which states "The Hunting Song, music composed by George Frederic Handel, words by Sir Charles Legh". The organ was restored by the British organ builder Mander in 1959 and is still playable today. A fantastic and interesting link to our worthy cause.

  The Eccles Sunday School was not in a good condition with broken windows and water pouring in. It also had not been used for some 30 years except as a depository for unwanted items of rubbish, so a great deal of work was required, firstly to just empty the building and then to bring it back to a useable state so it could be converted into the requirements for our project. After four years of hard work totaling some 17,000 hours by our volunteers the building was fully restored and converted into the Trust's Heritage Centre with its unique Hope-Jones Museum. This Museum has already been acknowledged to be the world's first Museum dedicated to the work of Robert Hope-Jones.

A great many of these artifacts have been found and added to the collection, two of them, in particular, are very important from a heritage point of view. These are two original and unaltered Hope-Jones consoles (see figure 7). These were found stored out of view in two churches in Burton-on-Trent in the Midlands area of the United Kingdom. Following some negotiation with the Church authorities, the two consoles were rescued and have now been placed on indefinite loan to the Hope-Jones Museum by the Church of England Diocese at Burton-on-Trent, who we now thank most sincerely for letting us preserve them for posterity.

  Both these consoles are from complete organs that were manufactured by The Hope-Jones Electric Organ Company. The oldest of these consoles dates from 1894 and is from the Church of St. Paul's. The St. Paul's organ is a unique instrument being the first complete commercial organ built by Hope-Jones after his Company was formed in 1892, and it is identified as Opus 70. The reason for this high Opus number is because Hope-Jones had been counting his Opus numbers on all organs built under license to his patents and these licensed instruments had been built from 1888 until 1893 when Robert Hope-Jones set up "The Hope-Jones Electric Organ Company" as his first commercial organ building Company. The second console, dating from 1900 is from St. Modwen's, this is identified as opus 145. This was built just 3 years before Robert Hope-Jones emigrated to the United States of America and where he eventually joined the Wurlitzer Company.

  On both consoles the stops are not drawstops as one would expect at that time to find on Church organs, but consisted of two types of stop tabs. On the earlier console from St. Paul's the stops are a type of ivory rocker tabs that were specially manufactured for Hope Jones by the Endolithic Ivory Company Limited of London, whose advert states "Sole makers of Ivory Keys to the Hope-Jones Electric Organ Company Limited." The later console from St. Modwen's, manufactured just six years later, has stop keys of a completely different design. Here Hope-Jones has completely changed the appearance of the stops. These later stops look almost identical to those used some years later on the Wurlitzer theatre organ and as were also used on virtually all Theatre Organs.

  The two consoles are both four manual units with the rows of stops across the top of the backrail. Also both these consoles have on their right hand key cheeks additional rocker tabs which control the tremulants which were fitted to these organs. The pipe ranks and stop arrangements of both these consoles are showing a tendency towards the stop arrangements appearing on the later theatre organs, Stops like Tibias, Strings, Oboe, Gamba etc. plus of course those tremulants. The embryo of Hope-Jones' colour coding for theatre organ tabs is also evident here for the first time; white for flue stops, red for reeds, and black for couplers. So all the elements of what we consider today to be a Theatre Organ were actually present on this first Hope-Jones commercial pipe organ built in 1894. One can say in all honesty that this first Hope-Jones commercial organ was most definitely a theatre organ in all but name.

Another major item also acquired and on display is what we now know to be the earliest surviving original Hope-Jones electric action. This electric action was discovered along with other Hope-Jones items under much rubbish in the attic of a Funeral Director, where it had been in store for many years (see figure 8).

The action consists of a series of multiway switches operated by stoptabs which were intended to couple key contacts to pipe magnets. Each switch consisting of a row of two wire contacts, one wire contact being joined to a key contact, the other wire contact being connected to a pipe magnet. The contacts were operated by shorting together each pair of contacts with a short bar fastened in vertical rows on a wooden actuator. In many ways similar to the later Wurlitzer relay system the major difference being that the effective roller switches on this system are vertical, whereas the later Wurlitzer roller switches are horizontal.  The Trust is not aware of any other electric actions of similar age that are still in existence, although some component parts have been found. As far as is known all the other original complete Hope-Jones electric actions have been destroyed and scrapped over the years. Thus to find such a complete and  well preserved action is not only a very important Heritage item but a major contribution to our Hope-Jones Museum.

We had always been under the impression that there were no surviving Hope-Jones tremulants, and again it was thought that these had been destroyed when their respective pipe organs were rebuilt. However through an interested person creating a lead, one such original tremulant has been located, rescued, cleaned and is now in the museum. It is interesting to look closely at this tremulant and observe its operation, and also to observe how later Wurlitzer and other Theatre Organ Tremulants follow this basic Hope-Jones design. This unit again is controlled by two of the original Hope-Jones action magnets, also the pull wire from the operational bellows interestingly has the same thread for its leather buttons as that used on the later Wurlitzers, so Hope-Jones continued to use the original British threads when working in America.  

It is generally considered that St. John's Birkenhead was the church where the first complete organ built by Robert Hope-Jones was situated.  However research has shown that this is not so and the credit for that first organ should now go to St. Luke's Tranmere, Birkenhead, an organ which was rebuilt in 1884 by Hope-Jones then aged 25. The organ had originally been built by William and Frank Hall, organ builders in Birkenhead. The remains of this organ have also been acquired, restored and are now reduced to a diminutive two octave version with three stops, which is working and on display in the museum.  This organ from St. Luke's was first played by Robert when he was just 23 years old. It is interesting to note that a certain Mr. Laird was a sidesman at the Church and when Robert started work his first job was as an apprentice at Laird's Shipbuilders in Birkenhead, owned by the same Mr. Laird.

Just before this time Henry Royce was working as the first electrician for a company that was installing the first electric street lights in Liverpool. The firm Royce worked for was undertaking all kinds of electrical work using this new technology of electricity, it is known for instance that they also undertook the electric lighting of the Prince of Wales Theatre in Liverpool. This particular contract was very successful and as a result a new subsidiary company was formed in October 1882 called the Lancashire Maxim-Weston Electric Co. Ltd. of Peter’s Lane, Liverpool.

At this same time, Robert Hope-Jones was the Chief Engineer of the Lancashire and Cheshire Telephone Company and was controlling the installation of telephones in Liverpool. We have often wondered, that as Henry Royce was involved in laying power cables for street lighting in Liverpool streets and Robert Hope-Jones was laying telephone cables also in Liverpool streets, if they had met each other in this environment? A possibility still looking for clues.

The fact that Royce moved to Manchester and shared part of a building with an organ builder adds to that question above - did Henry Royce already know Robert Hope-Jones? Had they met during their work in Liverpool streets? Was it even Hope-Jones who suggested that Royce share a factory with Benson's Organ Builders? What is certain is that at that time George Benson, owner of the Company, was manufacturing pipe organs with an electric action manufactured under license from the Hope-Jones Patents, so George and Robert were certainly acquainted.

The documentary evidence that proves this fact is contained in a company profile written by John De Looze. John De Looze was the Company Secretary of F.H. Royce Ltd. from 1893 until 1943. The document lists early items manufactured by F.H. Royce and Co. and in the document is the following important statement: " 'inter alia' Electro Magnetos for the Hope-Jones organ manufactured at Birkenhead, the work was not of such a nature as would call the attention of the 'man in the street' who is desirous of making his fortune with little risk."

This important evidence came to light in documents that were held in the Leicestershire Records Office and were found for us by the Rolls Royce Historian, Tom Clarke. The Rolls Royce company have given special permission for a copy of this record to be made for use in our Museum (see figure 10). Later, as his company expanded Henry Royce moved from his first premises in Blake Street to the next street in Hulme - Cooke Street, and then to Trafford Park Industrial Estate in a factory directly opposite Glovers Cables Ltd., (see figure 13). It should be noted that Glovers Cables had invested money in the Lancashire and Cheshire Telephone Company as early as 1881 (see figure 12). This of course was the Company that Robert Hope-Jones worked for. Could this be another connection between Hope-Jones and Royce?

It is also significant that Ernest Claremont who was the Managing Director of Glovers Cables became the brother in law of Henry Royce so there is not much doubt that Royce obtained his wire for winding the Hope-Jones electric action coils from Glovers Cables. It is also fact that Henry Edmunds, who was a major share holder in Glovers Cables, was the person who introduced Henry Royce to Charles Rolls and thus created that world famous company of Rolls Royce.

Earlier in this paper there was mention made of a pipe rank called the Tibia. It had been generally thought that Hope-Jones didn't invent his Tibia until after he emigrated to America in 1903, however evidence has now come to light to show that was not so. A pipe rank called the Tibia had been in use for some time in Europe, used mainly by German Organ Builders and was a type of simple flute. Hope-Jones completely changed the format and redesigned the Tibia  in 1894. He invented his first Tibia pipes in two forms which were named the "Tibia Dura" and the "Tibia Plena." Both names being of Latin origin, the word "Dura" comes from the Latin meaning "Harsh to the ear" and the word "Plena" from the Latin meaning "Plump, Stout, or Thick", Tibia being the Latin for Flute. One of Robert Hope-Jones' brothers was Kenyon Hope-Jones, who was a church minister and Latin scholar, so no doubt he helped Robert with the choice of suitable Latin words for the names of these organ pipes. The world's first two original Hope-Jones Tibia ranks have now been located, acquired and are both on display in the museum (see figure 9).

Robert Hope-Jones' first Company was called "The Hope-Jones Electric Organ Company" and was founded on 1st July 1892. The factory was made up of a number of cottages at 11-13 Huskisson Street in Birkenhead, not too far from St. Johns Church. It was the intention that the Company was formed to act as consultants and to license Hope-Jones organ Patents as well as manufacture pipe organs under its own name. Hope-Jones applied for a number of Patents which ran into thirty plus as provisional Patents, but not all these were granted full Patent status. Among the archive material our research has enabled us to acquire, is a copy of a part of the original Patent register from Hope-Jones' Patent Agent W.P. Thompson and Co. of Liverpool, Founded 1873. The copy document was acquired just before the original was placed in long term storage in a sealed vault. It is a hand written record of all the original Patent applications made by "Hope-Jones R" between October 11th 1889 and November 20th 1894. Among the Hope-Jones Patents is one dated April 6th 1891 for a device called a Distance Indicator. Maybe this could form another interesting subject for research. Also in this copy register are the names of several other manufacturers of the time, notable is a Patent applied for by "de Ferranti" for electric cables, a Company which later became the well known electrical Company (see appendix).

For the Hope-Jones Electric Organ Company's first year of operation Robert's' younger brother Frank Hope-Jones was Company Secretary.  After the first year Frank used part of the Electric Organ Company premises to start his own work which led to the invention of the Synchronome, a first electric clock. Frank Hope-Jones was also involved in early Amateur Radio and became a founder member of the Radio Society of Great Britain. Frank went on to invent and patent the Greenwich Time Signal Pips which are still used today as the time signal before the BBC Radio News. An interesting link to Frank Hope-Jones is the fact that Lord Egerton of Tatton Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire was also one of the first Radio Amateurs in the country and had contact with several Radio Amateurs including 6TW - James Noden, the local Radio Society of Great Britain representative. Lord Egerton also had interests in radio in London where Frank was working. Lord Egerton formed a radio manufacturing Company in Manchester, just about a mile from where Henry Royce was working at Benson's. The Company was called "Meta", believed to stand for Maurice Egerton of Tatton Associates. Also Lord Egerton was a pioneer in aircraft flying and used radio to communicate to his aircraft flying above Tatton Hall in Cheshire. A great flying friend of his was Charles Rolls, who of course eventually joined Henry Royce to form that famous Company.

The first occurred in 1897 when a confrontation took place between Robert Hope-Jones and the Birkenhead branch of the Organ Builders United Trades Society, an early Trade Union. The incident took place when Hope-Jones wanted to employ female labour in his factory but members of the above Trade Society instructed its members not to impart any knowledge to the girls. It was reported that several members of the work force had been intimidated by members of the Trade Society. Eventually Hope-Jones announces that he is severing all business connections with the Trade Society. Hope-Jones wins his case and several members leave his employ. A private letter has come to light that was written by Hope-Jones "To the late Employees of the Electric Organ Company Ltd. who are members of the Organ Builders United Trades Society". This is another instance of Hope-Jones heritage material being undiscovered for possibly 100 years. A full transcript of this letter is in the appendix to this paper.

The event was also reported in the local newspaper, The Birkenhead and Cheshire Advertiser on the 18th September 1897 as a "Lock-out at Hope-Jones' Organ Works". There was a response on the 25th September in a letter to the Editor from Robert Hope-Jones denouncing the report and declaring that there was no Lock-out.

The second event was of a much less serious nature, but still shows Hope-Jones determination. This second incident took place in May 1898 in a letter to the University of Edinburgh. Basically the Electric Organ Co. Ltd. had supplied a new organ to the McEwan Hall and the Hall people had decided to have it serviced by a local organ builder called Wellby. A letter discovered about 10 years ago in the Edinburgh University archive written by Robert Hope-Jones has the statement, "We are most anxious that your Organ should be kept in perfect order, as no firm besides ourselves has, at the present time, the requisite knowledge & skill to enable them to do this." Again a full transcript of the letter is in the appendix to this paper.

Following on the same line, Benson's Organ builders who shared their factory building in Blake street Hulme with the electrical company owned by Henry Royce, was financed by a Benjamin Joule another well known brewing magnate in Hulme Manchester.

One of Joule’s main interests was to try to produce an electric motor driven by a zinc-acid battery. He hoped that this would replace the coal-driven steam engines that were the norm at that time. He realised that this was a highly ambitious project which would require a great deal of preliminary research. During this project he worked out how to measure the heat generated by an electric current. James Joule was of course the famous Physicist who founded the definition for the mechanical equivalent of heat with that famous constant 4.2 named after him.

It was printed in the "Discovery Magazine" of  February 1891 that St. John's  Birkenhead organ had an electric action that was supplied by a 2 hp Gas Engine driving a Dynamo. It is known that Henry Royce had just previously taken out a Patent for that same combination, so with the now established close links between the two there is no doubt that Royce supplied the electrical supply for the St. John's organ. It is mentioned in the company profile written by John De Looze that Henry Royce's Company made Leclanché cells, a type of battery developed by Frenchman Georges Leclanché. It was this type of cell that Hope-Jones mentions in his various lectures as the battery supply he used for his organs. Measurements made on the coils manufactured by Henry Royce show that the voltage required to operate these coils and thus the voltage required for the electric organ action was 4.5 volts. This is the same as the output voltage of the Royce Dynamo and also the voltage output of three Leclanché cells in series.  Another very interesting link between Hope-Jones and Royce is that they were both Members of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and they joined the Institution just 5 years apart, Hope-Jones in 1892 and Henry Royce in 1897.

It was well known that Robert Hope-Jones gave a lot of free advice to many of the other organ builders in the country much to the annoyance of his financial supporter brewing magnate Thomas Threlfall. George Benson, Norman and Beard, John Compton and Nicholsons were certainly among them.

In 1903 following several accusations, some by prominent organ builders, that Robert Hope-Jones was an amateur and shouldn't be manufacturing pipe organs, Robert felt it was necessary to leave the country on the S.S.Teutonic and emigrate to the USA together with his wife, Cecil Laurence whom he had married on 27th August 1895 (see figure 3). He arrived in New York on the 7th May 1903.

At the time Robert's departure must have caused some amusement and relief to the many organ builders who were hostile to his patents and inventions and who were in consequence missing out on some large orders for pipe organs that always seemed to be given to Robert Hope-Jones. However, in the absence of Hope-Jones these very same organ builders lost no time in making use of many of Robert’s Patents, in many cases while the Patent was still registered to Robert Hope-Jones and had not expired.

After Robert had left the country a large number of the various Hope-Jones organs appeared to have been sabotaged by unknown organ builders maybe in the hope that they could obtain orders to rebuild them. It was certainly true that many of these organs unexpectedly received innumerable faults for no apparent reason. One such casualty was his organ at St. Modwen's Burton-on-Trent (the console now being at our museum). Here one pipe from each of the more unusual stops was stolen, most probably to be copied by a rival organ builder. This fact helped to spread the word as evidence that Hope-Jones Organs were unreliable. Investigation has shown that many of these faults were engineered, even in some cases causing what might appear to be a fire started by an  electrical fault when in fact the organ electrical system had been disconnected.

To go back to 1892 for a moment, a series of letters have recently come to light. These were recently discovered when the grandson of an organ builder was sorting out his father's estate. These letters have an interesting connection which starts at Benson's Organ builders at the time that Henry Royce was sharing the factory. Robert Hope-Jones received on 8th July 1892 a letter from an employee of Benson's asking for a job with the Hope-Jones Electric Organ Company. Robert replied offering the person a job at a pay of seven pence an hour, if his present employer George Benson had no objection. The person who was called Albert Lloyd accepted (see figure 16). In a photograph of Benson's organ builders staff Albert Lloyd is the young man on the right of the picture kneeling (see figure 14).

The story goes on, when Hope-Jones emigrated to America, Albert Lloyd again requested a job. This time Lloyd actually emigrated and arrived in the USA on the 22nd June 1907. The very day he arrived, a letter was waiting for him offering a job with the "Hope-Jones Organ Company, New York and Elmira" ( see figure 17). Lloyd  eventually followed Hope-Jones to the Wurlitzer Factory. Then on 6th September 1911 Lloyd received a letter from George Kilgen and Sons offering him a job in charge of organ building (see figure 15), Albert Lloyd is third from the right. Interestingly, Lloyd's address on the letter offering him the job is Box 4 North Tonawanda, New York.

 A main feature of Robert’s work in the USA was his dream to build a people's instrument in the form of a fully unified organ, a feature which Hope-Jones had mentioned in a paper he had given as early as 1891.  The Hope-Jones unified system allowed individual ranks of pipes to be played from any keyboard and with his coupler design were able to be used at any chosen pitch. This of course came to fruition in his design of the Wurlitzer Theatre Organ now known the world over.

It is well recorded that when Robert Hope-Jones was working for Wurlitzer's at their factory in Tonawanda he was banned from the factory because he would insist on going on the shop floor and interfering with production, trying to improve or change designs etc. In fact it is now known that Robert Hope-Jones was a perfectionist of major proportions. Recently our research has found out that Henry Royce was also a perfectionist and was also banned from the Rolls Royce Factory for that very same reason, another very interesting link.

Since my involvement in Theatre organs, which started over 33 years ago, we have always jokingly referred to the Wurlitzer Theatre Organ as the "Rolls Royce of Theatre organs", and so our present research and knowledge goes well with the old saying  "Many a True Word is Spoken in Jest."

The Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust's "Hope-Jones Museum" was opened on the 30th September 2006 by the Mayor of Salford, Councilor B. P. Murphy, and is now open to the public. The Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust also use the 1920's decor auditorium for a series of lunch time concerts presented every Wednesday using the Heritage Centre Wurlitzer - this is the ex Trocadero, Liverpool, Style DA, 2/6 Wurlitzer, Opus 1664, which was one of the first 13 Wurlitzers shipped to Britain and is now the sixth oldest surviving Wurlitzer in the UK. The Wurlitzer was first installed in October 1927 and was of course originally used for accompanying silent movies.