Census ID | CAN1904 |
---|---|
Location | Guangzhou, Shamian, Christ Church |
Builder | Walker |
Specs | Unknown, but reported to be a small two-manual and pedal organ |
Action | Probably mechanical |
A small organ installed by Walker in the ‘Canton British Episcopal Church’. This refers to Christ Church, a small Anglican church on Shamian Island in Guangzhou, built around 1864 near the site of ‘Canton Factories’ of the eighteenth century (it replaced an earlier church of 1848, destroyed in December 1856.)
No further details from the Walker archives are available about this installation (CAN1904). It appears that Denman Fuller (organist at Hong Kong’s St. John’s Anglican Cathedral 1905-1935) had some role in facilitating the purchase and installation of the instrument A visit in October 1989, when the still-standing church was in a fairly unrenovated state, found no trace of this organ which was probably irreparably damaged in a massive riverside explosion in October 1938, but two early photographs of the organ survive, one said by the church in 2024 to be from 1938.
Christ Church, Shamian, 1920s.
Interior, Christ Church, Shamian, 1938, with CAN1904. Note the addition of electric fans to replace the punkahs in the earlier (main) photograph.