“With Care, Can Last Another 108 Years”: Kingston Parish Church Sets Out to Save Its 1910 Pipe Organ

• Kingston Parish Church’s pipe organ was built by Henry Wills & Sons in 1910
• It replaced an organ destroyed in the 1907 earthquake
• Repairs were estimated at £10,000, about J$1.7 million
• A Good Friday fundraiser concert was planned for March 30, 2018

Kingston Parish Church, at the corner of King Street and South Parade, launched a campaign in 2018 to repair one of its most valuable fixtures: a 108-year-old pipe organ, the Gleaner reported.

The instrument was built by Henry Wills & Sons in 1910 to replace a Samuel Green organ that was destroyed in the 1907 earthquake. By 2018 it had problems with stuck stops, and vehicle exhaust from downtown traffic had clogged its airways. Repairs were estimated at £10,000, or roughly J$1.7 million, and were planned in three stages covering the two keyboards and the pipes.

Dwight McBean, a certified organ tuner and the maker’s representative for the Caribbean, argued that restoration made more sense than replacement with an electronic instrument, which he said would last about 15 years. “It is 108 years old and, with care, can last another 108 years,” he said. The church’s organist is Archie Dunkley.

To raise the money, the church planned a Good Friday concert on March 30, 2018, featuring the Ecumenical Chorale, pianists Mickel Gordon and Stephen Shaw-Naar, the Mona Campus Male Chorus, the Musical Apostles Steel Band, soloists June Thompson Lawson and Carole Reid and violinist Steven Woodham.

A pipe organ is part of a church’s property in a very real sense — a fixed, valuable and insurable asset. The debate over repair versus replacement is the same one congregations face with roofs and walls: pay more now for something that lasts generations, or less for something that must be replaced within two decades.

For a church that hosts many official state functions, the organ is also part of Kingston’s public heritage. Diaspora members and music lovers who remember services in the downtown church have a direct way to help preserve it, and the stewardship lesson applies to any congregation weighing the lifetime cost of what it owns.

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