ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From: Ian McIver, June 2001
The Palace Ballroom console was a rebuild of the 2-decker panel console from
Madame Tussaud’s. Opening the console reveals the original varnished wood
exterior panels underneath the French surround. The proportions of the
console are therefore slightly different from standard. The ormolu moulding
is of a non-standard pattern.
The instrument was removed from the
bomb-damaged Madame Tussaud’s, and was rebuilt and set up in the Wurlitzer
factory in 1949 as a demonstration instrument.
It was sold to the Blackpool
Tower Company in 1952. When installed at the Palace Ballroom it had an
extra two-rank chest, with an English Horn (by Rodgers?), the other side of
the chest being spare for any later addition. I am unsure whether that
chest was added when the organ was set up in the factory. The organ was
visited there a couple of times by the Theatre Organ Club, so someone might
recall.
After being pulled out of the Palace Ballroom at the last minute,
the organ found its way (minua the English Horn) to a residence in Yeovil,
then to Hobart, Tasmania in 1975, where it is in St Michael’s School, with
an Orchestral Oboe added on the old English Horn chest.