User:Stcyprian's



History

St Cyprian's Clergy - Past and Present

1869 - 1873 Robinson, Frederick Sidney Archdeacon, obtained land in Pine Terrace (now 104 - 108 Commercial Road) took ill died 1873 1873 - 1874 Wilshire, A.R.M Rector St Saviour's Claremont Cape, officiated at baptisms, weddings and funerals 1874 - 1874 Goodwin T arrived from St Helena and nominally attached to St Cyprian's as Curate 1874 - 1876 Whittington, Henry F                Daykin, William Gate Curate Priest 1877 - 1885 Whittington, Henry Fothergill Foundation stone was laid in Smith St. Congregation raised £2000 for building nave a further £2000 was necessary to complete the church Building completed and consecrated on 5th May 1881. Rev Whittington's zeal inspired the erection of St Augustine's Church in Musgrave Road - Resigned 1885 1885 - 1887 Carlyon, Hubert Edward Resigned 1888 - 1902 Johnson, Herbert L Arrived from Leeds- strong character with great organising skills. Raised money to purchase land next to the church in Smith St preventing the establishment of a cinema on the site. In 1895 rented house 7 Umgeni Road and together with Miss Snell supported by Canon Johnson's sister Miss Fanny Johnson set up a school for poor Coloured children known as St Cyprian's  Mission School - later to become St Monica's Home 1903 - 1906 Crosse, Arthur John William Arrived from Rye in Sussex. Elequent preacher - attracted large congregations. Appealed for funds from the Society for the Propagation of the Faith for funds towards the Mission school - now renamed  Mission of the Good Shepherd - the name St Cyprian's mission clung. Returned to England 1906 1905 Robinson, Francis Conduced some services 1907 Rogers, Reginald Pearson Later to becomr Vicar of Estcourt 1908 - 1928 Hodson, Morris Octavius 1913 old St Augustine's demolished- Church erected, Congella Canon Hodson was an active member of the Durban Town Councillor an became Archdeacon of Durban 1927 - 1934 Gibbons, Harry Colourful Character and a good preacher 1934 - 1953 Ramsden, Francis Norman Responsible for and supervised the removal of the church from Smith Street to the present site in Congella. Welded together the two congregations of At Augustine's Congella and St Cyprian's Smith Street into a new and strong body of worshippers 1953 - 1960 Wellington, Wilfred Lloyd Built Parish Hall - foundation stone laid on 18th December 1954 dedicated by Bishop Inman in June 1954. The cost of the hall was over £7000. To commutate the 1700th anniversary of the death of St Cyprian who was martyred in 258AD funds were raised by the parishioners to replace the terrazzo altar rail with the present wooden rail Appointed Archdeacon of Ladysmith and moved to the Parish of Estcourt 1954 - 1960 Hide, Peter Durose Vernon Kay, Andrew Assisted Rev Wellington 1960 - 1975 Goldie, Parnell Evelyn Formally from the Parish of Isipingo. He served on the Executive of the Natal Council of Churches and was the Anglican representative on the South African Council of Churches. Later appointed as Canon of St Saviour's Cathedral Pietermaritzburg. 1975 - 1978 Fenton, Albert George Canon 1977 - 1985 Van Zuylen, Roderick Neil Archdeacon transferred to St James 1986 - 1989 Crane, Harold William

1989 - 1992 Harker, Peter Became Bishop of Zululand

Elsworth, Dane Christopher Good preacher Restored the Parish to Anglo - Catholicism - extended the kitchens in the hall - Purchased property 253 Nicholson Road - Placed the parish on a secure financial footing - Developed a serving & cooperative attitude amongst parishioners assisted by: 1994 - 2004 Fr. Pugsley 2007 - 2008 Fr David Goldstone 2008 Fr Alan Miller

'THE ORGAN – ST CYPRIAN PARISH CHURCH, DURBAN' By Errol Bristow (Organist St Cyprians) The original organ was ordered from the firm of HELE & Company of Plymouth, England, in 1876 and installed in the Smith Street church in 1878. It would appear that the organ was commissioned before the church was built. The instrument was quite small and comprised of no more than 7 stops, most probably on 1 manual but possibly 2 manuals with a pedal stop that was later discarded. The presence of Brindley and Foster (Sheffield, England) pipes on both manuals and pedal would indicate that William Kemp of Pietermaritzburg at some stage enlarged the organ. Kemp was an ex-employee of Brindley and Foster who set up business in Pietermaritzburg in 1901 having installed numerous organs in SA up to that time, including the City Hall organs of both Durban and Pietermaritzburg, the first having been destroyed by fire in 1895. It is often wondered why the members of St Cyprians placed the order for the organ with Hele & Company, particularly as the firm had only been in existence for about 10 years. A possible explanation lies in an article in the Autumn 1994 edition of the Dartmoor Magazine in which it was mentioned that a Revd William Yate Daykin of Sheepstor Parish church, near Plymouth, left in 1895 to take up a post as Archdeacon of Durban. It is thought it may conceivably be possible that Revd Daykin may have had a previous contact with Hele & Co and recommended them to the church Council. When the church moved from Smith Street to its present position at Congella the organ would have been removed as well and installed by a Mr Kitchener of Cooper Gill & Tomkins, and there it stood in much of its unaltered form until the rebuild starting 20 August 1998. Roy Low of the SABC said his Father used to play the organ at St Cyprians during the last war and that the front pipes came from the old Central Methodist church in West Street, so alterations must of taken place in the early sixties when the Methodist Church moved to corner Aliwal and West Street. The existing Open Diapason being removed to make way for the new Diapason with extension to 16 ft Violone Diapason on the pedals. And so the organ continued to function together with Consol and Choir upstairs in the loft, the organ being assembled against the rear wall with choir and consol in front. During 1981 I took over position of organist from Sydney Herbert and was told that the organ was having its 10 year overhaul. The instrument was brought forward and the consol together with the choir was moved downstairs. The old consol could just about cope with the distance as the action was air activated and it needed a complete overhaul. It was decided to put in a new 3 manual consol on modern lines than to try and overhaul the totally outdated, non standard consol. Michael Hankinson, then organist for the City Hall, Durban, was called in as consultant for R Tozer pipe organ builder. The price of the consol was R10,000,00 and was installed after September 1983 in it’s present position. No funds being available for the Choir organ, the installation cost ± R10,000.00. As the years progressed ciphers were much in evidence and to rectify the fault pipes would be pulled out to silence the offending note. The organ was getting to a stage where it was starting to be un-playable due to the deterioration of the leather purse blocks in the sound boards which is a very time consuming and costly job to repair, but which could be spread over the years. A better proposition arrived as we heard there was an organ for sale from the Presbyterian Church in Longmarket Street, Pietermaritzburg, which was sold to us for R30,000.00 minus the consol and blower. To do repairs on this system would be at a third of the price of our purse block system. THE MOVE – THE DISMANTLING – THE ASSEMBLY Saturday 16th May 1998 a work party of men assembled at St Cyprians to travel to Pietermaritzburg and bring back the new organ. On arrival at Pietermaritzburg we found most of the organ had been dismantled and packed ready for loading into Mr Evans 5 ton furniture van. Members of the work party were quite amazed as to the weight of some of the parts and the frailty of others. The Van was full, and so was the boots of the member’s cars. The van would return on the Monday and bring back the remainder of parts. The fragile pipe work would be brought by Colin Hele, the organ builder. All our work was completed by 11h00 which was to the delight of some members and the Rector, as they were off to see an important Rugby match at Kings Park! When the van arrived back at St Cyprian’s we unloaded and stacked as much as we could of the parts upstairs, and the heavy wind chests and trunking we stored in the Chapel and side-aisle of the church. The old organ would have to be dismantled close to the time when the organ builder wished to commence with his assembly work as we wished to keep the organ sounding as long as possible. The last time the old organ sounded was the 09th August, 1998 and in order to play it out Margaret and I rendered the following at both 7am and 9 am services: Toccata D Minor – J.S. Bach Bells Across the Meadows – Albert Ketélbey In a Monastery Garden – Albert Ketélbey Phantom Melody - Albert Ketélbey Softly & Tenderly Panis Angelica – Cesar Franck Trumpet Voluntary – Clark & Trumpet Tune & Air – Purcell The Choir sang The Holy City with the congregation joining in at the 9am service. Tuesday 11th August 998 we started dismantling the old organ and I am very grateful for the assistance of Roy Lowe (Chairman of Natal Branch Theatre Organ Society). All parts were marked and numbered and so if we ever need to, we can assemble it again. We finished our work on Thursday 13th August 1998 with a few loose ends to neaten up on Friday. The cost to strip the new organ in Pietermaritzburg by the organ builder was R6840 inclusive of VAT. Cost to strip the old organ ourselves – Nil. Now comes the big crunch - How do we get the heavy parts up stairs? We asked for a few quotations from rigging and scaffolding firms, the cheapest being R7,000.00. We were starting to run out of time and in the end obtained permission to borrow scaffolding with a 2 ton chain block and beam and again I am grateful for the assistance of Taffy Reese in the erection of 2 scaffold towers - only to find on completion that our towers needed to be raised by another 2 sections. We are extremely grateful for the assistance of Ronny and his brother Billy King who was a structural Engineer in the University of Natal, Department of Civil Engineering who kindly lent us the additional scaffolding and secured the towers to the balcony and passed it for safe use. Saturday 22 August 1998 we had another work party together with the organ builder lifting the parts into place in the organ loft. All went smoothly with no accidents. The following Saturday another work party to help the organ builder in the assembly of the Swell Box. The chipboard is extremely heavy being 43.5m x 2m x 30mm thick. When this was completed, the heavy Swell Wind Chest was placed inside on end. The Swell Box then had to be painted inside and out and to Taffy Reese again, thank you. You made a fine job of it. Another work party was confirmed the following Saturday to lift the heavy wind chests onto their supports once Colin Hele had positioned and fixed them to the base frame. The church is extremely grateful to the work parties and various persons who have made themselves available during this venture, with them we would have been faced with huge labour costs. It was Colin Hele who said to me one day during the assembly work, you can see this is a Christian church when everyone comes together to help. The organ, although not complete to-date, was blessed by Bishop Ruben on Sunday 08 November 1998 at pm Service of Songs of Praise and as to this time of writing there are still eight stops to be connected. To those interested in costs, one might say we paid R30,000.00 for the organ, why the extra costs? Well the answer is simple – you still have to install it! To dismantle Presbyterian Church Organ – R6,840.00 Swell Organ: To constructing and erecting a new swell box of 32mm chipboard, painted on both sides, assembling the Swell Organ within the enclosure, assembling the wind system, Swell front frames, shutter system and operating mechanism, alterations to the tallest pipes to fit box, alteration to frame and wind ducting, provide a new test-board to accommodate the new solid state switching system and necessary wiring, to cleaning, repairing and installing the swell pipe work, including the supply of such materials as necessary, including additional wind ducting, screws, cables etc – R18,240.00 (Broken down – Labour - R9,576.00 & Materials R8,664.00.) Great Organ: To assembling the Great main wind chests, wind system and adapting the front pipe system as required, to supplying a new test-board to accommodate the new solid state switching system and necessary wiring, including the supply of materials as necessary, wind ducting, screws, cable etc – R15,618.00 (Broken down – Labour R8,208.00 & Materials R7,410.00). All prices include VAT. There is an additional cost to alter the draw stop names of not more than R650.00 plus VAT. Without the help of the work parties and others the costs would have been considerably higher.