IN 1877, Frederick Davison was sixty-two years old (Plate 8.1). He had been actively involved in organ-building for four decades, during which the trade had undergone radical change. Throughout the 1850s, Gray & Davison had led the field in developing a concert organ to meet the aspirations of a new generation of players; their church organs, too, were progressive in design, and the firm's production methods and business organisation equalled, and probably surpassed, those of their competitors. Fifteen years later, output remained steady, and major commissions seemed to confirm that Gray & Davison retained its place near the head of the profession.

This impression was slightly misleading. The passing of the older generation of organ-builders – J.C. Bishop (1854), William Hill (1870) and Joseph Walker (1870) – brought younger successors to the fore, and provided openings for more radical competitors such as Henry Willis and T.C. Lewis. For established figures such as Davison, this was a potential challenge. One of the first things Thomas Hill (1822–93) did on succeeding his father was to construct a new organ factory in York Road, Camden Town; it opened in 1872 and was more commodious, convenient and better equipped than Gray & Davison's works in Euston Road. Meanwhile, Willis's work achieved a new degree of musical and technical sophistication with the completion of organs on a novel scale for the Royal Albert Hall (1871) and the Alexandra Palace (1873, 1875); beside them, Davison's products appeared behind the times. Lewis posed a different challenge. Strongly influenced by the German builder, Edmund Schulze, Lewis's organs had brilliant, powerful flue choruses accompanied by a selection of delicate gedacts, strings and orchestral reeds; when Best and Smart advised on a new concert organ for St Andrew's Hall, Glasgow in 1877, it was to Lewis that they turned rather than Davison. Lewis also made significant inroads into the London church organ trade, but he was not alone. The number of organ workshops in the capital increased rapidly after 1850, as men trained in the older manufactories went into business on their own account: Henry Jones (1853), Alfred Hunter (1856), Henry Speechly (1860), Alfred Monk (1862) and Eustace Ingram (1867) all produced well-made organs at reasonable prices. For the existing firms, there was no room for complacency.