File:New Gallery Wurlitzer opus 1034 console, Habitat, Regent Street, 2010.jpg

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Wurlitzer Organ

Habitat, Regent Street

In the 8th April 1925, Opus number 1034 was shipped from the USA and installed in the New Gallery Cinema in time for its opening on the 12th June. It was only the third Wurlitzer to be shipped to the UK, and the first to make its way into London's West End. It was the largest and most tonally complete of the three and cost ￡5,500.

Thought there were already a few organs installed in cinemas at that time, Wurlitzer at the New Gallery was the first of its type to be heard on recordings and radio. Owing both to the expertise of the first Solo organist, Reginald Foort, and to the wonderfully mellow and 'lush' voicing of this particular instrument, the New Gallery Wurlitzer was an immediate and unprecedented success with the public - starting a theatre organ 'boom' in this country which saw over six hundread instruments installed in theatres during the 1920s and 30s. Several of Foort's records sold over a million copies, breaking every industry sales record at the time, and he broadcast the organ on a weekly basis.

In 1953, after a decline in business, the Rank Organisation (who by then owned the New Gallery) agreed to sell the cinema to the Seventh Day Adventist Church. It became the property of the Church at midnight on the 13th September. Between 1953 and 1992, when the Church vacated the property, the organ was heard regularly - both during Church services and at privately arranged concerts and silent films.

During the building's conversion to a Habitat store, The Wurlitzer has been completely restored to its original condition by the specialist firm Theatre Organ Restorations Ltd.

Main Chamber
  • Diapason
  • Concert Flute
  • Violin
  • Violin Celeste
  • Clarinet
  • Vibraphone
Solo Chamber
  • Tibia Clausa
  • Tuba Horn
  • Vox Humana
  • Glockenspiel
  • Cathedral Chimes
  • Xylophone
  • Non-Tonal Percussion effects
— Habitat, Refent Street
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Source Flickr: Wurlitzer Organ
Author Andy Roberts
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