The present organ was installed in 1939 by Harold Ainsworth Harrison in memory of his parents William and Mary Harrison who were Headmaster and Headmistress of the Parish Church Schools. It was built by Henry Willis & Sons of Liverpool and was rebuilt in 1970 by Charles Smethurst of Manchester.
There are over 1000 pipes in the organ ranging from 1/2" to 16ft pitch. 143 need replacing as dust affects the speech of the pipes and the display pipes need cleaning up.
The way an organ sounds tends to be changed to suit the times and towards the end of the 1940's with glenn Miller in full swing, organs were tuned to a duller sound to emulate concert and cinema organs. The end of the 1950's saw a move to neo-Baroque and during the 1970's tuning to an altogether brighter output came along. So we await the completion of the work on our organ with anticipation.
For those who know the hymn "Angel voices ever singing round thy throne of light" you may be interested to know that it was used for the first time at the dedication of the new organ installed in 1880 at our neighbouring church - St John's at Wingates, Westhoughton.

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