Charles S. Barker

Charles Spackman Barker ( baptized January 7, 1807 in Bath, † November 26, 1879 in Maidstone ) was an English organ builder.

Life

Barker was born in 1807 in Bath. He invented a pneumatic device for easy opening of the Tonventile that increasingly became a problem when growing monumentality of the organs. The assessment of an English composer and organist Matthew Camidge, the amount of force required to play the organ of York Minster was " enough to paralyze most men".

After Barker found no takers in England for the purchase of his invention, he went to Paris in 1839 and left the license for the construction of the known as Barker lever device of the organ builder Cavaillé -Coll. Cavaillé -Coll developed the Barker lever to the production stage and used it for the first time in the great organ of the Royal Basilica of Saint- Denis.

A contract with Cavaillé- Coll struck from Barker, however, and instead signed an agreement with the organ builder Daublaine - Callinet, of which he was now. In 1844 he began accidentally with a chandelier that just six months old organ of the company Daublaine - Callinet in St- Eustache de Paris on fire, causing the ruin of the already threatened by the Konkerrenz of Cavaillé- Coll company. It was acquired by Alexandre Ducroquet that led to new success.

After the takeover of the company by Joseph Merklin to Barker started his own business with the foreman Charles Verschneider, with whom he worked until his death in 1865. Barker returned to England, where he died unnoticed in 1879.