 Hawksworth
St Mary and All Saints
Organ
Hawksworth churchwarden’s accounts record that a singing feast took place in May/June for several years in the early 1800s, and in 1806 pipe singers were paid £1-7s-0d. Music is recorded as an expense in the churchwarden’s account for Hawksworth church in 1832, 1838 and 1839. There were strings, bass strings and clarinets – one cost 18s. in 1833. Annually in 1842, 1845 to 1847, and in 1851 the accounts record that £1 was paid as a salary to the organist. Hessian matting was bought for the musicians’ gallery in 1850 at a cost of 7s. The gallery, which is believed to have been suspended above the entrance in the tower and reached from the access route up the tower, is said to have been removed in 1851.
The first mention of an organ in Hawksworth church is when £1 was paid to the organist in 1842, but no records exist of this organ.
 The current organ was built by Theodore C Bates and Son of Ludgate Hill, London. Although it is undated, village history records that it was dedicated to the service of God in Hawksworth in 1858 and cost £75-0s-0d. This complies with the known address of the maker at Ludgate Hill between 1824 and 1863. It is a single manual pipe organ consisting of four ranks of 17 painted pipes with a specification of 8,8,4,2 and 54 keys. Until 1988 it stood in a chamber between the north of the chancel and the vestry. It was moved in 1988 to its present position in the nave to allow the vestry to be repaired and converted to provide additional facilities. A wheeled platform was constructed by WB Stubbs of Hawksworth around this time so that the organ could be moved around within the nave. Steve Hadfield did restorative work to the organ in November 1990.
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