GEORGE FINCHAM
was born in London on the 2th August 1828 and being the son and grandson of
master Organbuilders it was inevitable that he became interested in Organ
building with the result that on the lst May 1843 he was indentured to Henry
Bevington, one of the leading Organbuilders in London at the time.
On the completion of his period of indenture he became factory foreman to James
Bishop, an equally highly respected Organbuilder in London.
As each of these Organbuilders had exported Organs to Australia so Fincham
decided to emigrate to what was then a young, virile and expanding country
where he felt he could commence his own business and have more opportunities
for prospering than were available in the quite competitive field of
Organbuilding in London at that time.
He arrived in Melbourne in 1852 and promptly advised Churches and the musical
society that he was anxious to commence building and maintaining Organs but as
the town was then preoccupied with the discovery of gold, so his first attempts
to seek work proved unsuccessful, with the result that he joined the numbers of
people travelling to the goldfields but, again, his optimism proved to be
founded.
He returned to Melbourne and bought land in the suburb of Richmond where he
built a fine big bluestone factory and offices together with a home and
commenced the tuning and repairs of organs and eventually built this up until
he built his first Organ in 1 864.
As the city and suburbs were rapidly expanding due to the return of many people
from the goldfields, so his business expanded accordingly despite the fact that
he faced a degree of opposition from smaller self-styled Organbuilders who were
who were primarily Organ repairers who in most instances purchased their pipes
and component parts from Fincham who had incorporated a very efficient
pipemaking division within his factory and produced pipes of high quality from
sheets cast with his own composition of 'spotted metal namely 45% pure tin and
55% lead.
Because of the great skill of Fincham as a practical Organbuilder and his
insistence that only the highest quality of timber, leather, keyboards, etc. be
used so the business expanded quite rapidly, also his willingness to construct
special Organs for the various Exhibitions which were held regularly in
Melbourne during the period from 1864 to 1890 indicated the excellence of his
craftsmanship particularly to those many church-people who were anxious to
construct the new Churches in the City of Melbourne and around the closer
suburbs.
In 1866 he was awarded the sum of 100 ponds for commencing the industry of
Organbuilding by the Victorian Government, using materials of colonial produce
and metal pipes of his own manufacture. He was the only Organbuilder in his
time to receive such an award which gave prestige to the industry in Victoria.
George Fincham's craft and skills produced Organs of the highest quality that
delighted organists and listeners and the remarkable durability of his actions
set an example that other builders found difficult to equal. His insistence on
using only the best, well-seasoned timbers of types suited to the vagaries of
Australia's climate ensured his windchests, actions, wood pipes. etc. proved
superior to imported Organs that invariably suffered damage during the long and
slow sea transport in the holds of ships through the tropical areas. The
Richmond factory manufactured all components incorporated in Organs and so
became a source of supply of metal pipes, keyboards, and action parts for other
builders.
His colossal and unique skills are simply proved by his ability to train every
member of his staff including metal pipe-makers which is probably the most
highly skilled division within the overall craft, to the level where in 1878 he
commenced the construction of the huge Organ which was to be installed in the
Melbourne Exhibition Buildings for the 1880 Exhibition. This instrument was
rated as being the 18' largest Organ in the World at that time and would be
assessed as a huge achievement by any Organbuilder equipped to evaluate the
craftsmanship involved.
George Fincham died on the 21st December 1910 ending the life of one of the
true pioneers of Victoria and the ownership and administration of the business
passed to his son, Leslie.
Leslie Fincham managed the business through extremely difficult times, firstly
having to survive the depression immediately after World War I. Then through
the world wide depression of 1929-34 and finally though the period 1939-1945
during World War II. Secondly, during the period when Leslie Fincham operated
the business the world accepted standard of Organ action, namely
tubular-pneumatic action, proved, with the passage of time, to be a form of
mechanism that was most expensive to build and subject to the extremes of
temperature and humidity that made its operation unreliable.
However, Leslie Fincham strenuously maintained the standards of manufacture
laid down by his father and despite very difficult financial periods when
Churches had little money to spend on Organbuilding, he maintained the highest
level of business ethics and integrity until his death the 28' May 1955.
It was during the period of Leslie Fincham's management of the business that
the major competition had to be faced because of the setting up of a branch of
the English Organbuilding company of Wm. Hill & Son & Norman &
Beard Ltd. Whilst this company prospered for a number of years the efflux of
time proved it could not survive the opposition of the Fincham business due
largely to the fact that at all times the management of the Australian branch
was under the direction of men who had no capital equity at risk in the
business as opposed to Fincham with very considerable financial equity in his
own business and whose highly esteemed name within the community provided a
more substantial guarantee of workmanship rather than the Royal Coat of Arms
appearing on the letterhead of Hill, Norman & Beard.
On the death of Leslie Fincham the ownership and direct personal management of
the business passed to his son George B. Fincham. As Organbuilding in Australia
was passing though a period of great prosperity at this time so there was ample
scope for Fincham to exercise his normal ambitions at age 38 of improving the
standards of Organbuilding in Australia and making the craft more able to
oppose those Organists who believed that for any Organ to be worthwhile it had
to come into Australia from Britain or Europe.
Fincham travelled the world on many occasions visiting the leading
Organbuilders mainly in Europe and Britain along with specialist pipe-makers
for the supply of reed pipes, keyboard manufacturers, blower manufacturers and
the suppliers of highly-specialised electrical components, with the result that
his ability to import specialised parts that proved too expensive for any
single Organbuilder to make, improved the standard of his instruments very
greatly and also, of course, proved highly beneficial to other small
Organbuilders around Australia who were not able to travel overseas and devote
time to investigating the latest developments in the craft.
Whilst Organbuilding in Australia was booming during the 1950-60's Fincham was
confident this would steadily recede because of the following:
George Fincham felt it was imperative to the survival of a hand-craft
business in Australia that it derive income from outside its core business to
level out the troughs that flow from Organbuilding during times of financial
stress. George Fincham & Sons Pty. Ltd. was fortunate that its proprietor
was able to infuse extensive practical knowledge of the economics of the craft
combined with considerable business acumen so income-producing investments were
made in the development of industrial property which then could subsidise the
manufacturing operation and this policy has enabled one of Australia's oldest
companies to survive where so many others have fallen during difficult economic
times, and at the same time to continue producing craftsmanship of the highest
quality.
As the demands on George Fincham's time grew with the rapidly escalating
investment in industrial property so he passed the management of the Organ
company to his son David who has proved to be a most worthy successor to his
Father. Having been apprenticed to his Company and completed a 5-year period
with distinction, he then worked for a year with the outstanding Organbuilder
in the world at the time, namely Tamburini of Northern Italy, and returned with
a greatly enhanced knowledge of the craft. Similar to the Melbourne Exhibition
Organ being the 'magnum opus' of George Fincham so it was a great compliment to
George B. Fincham that he was asked to build the large Organ for St. Patrick's
Cathedral, Melbourne on the Centenary of the founding of the Company, namely in
1962 and with the passage of some 35 years this instrument has proved to be a
worthy & tangible example of the integrity of the Fincham family.