Letter from Ernest M. Skinner to Henry Willis

Henry Willis, Jr.,
234 Ferndale Road,
Brixton, London,
S.W.9.

My dear Willis:

Placing the armature above the magnet favors the magnet by twice the weight of the armature. In the one case you have the weight of [the] armature helping the magnet, in the other, the weight of the armature against the magnet. The difference between+ 1 and -1 is 2. Also, when the armature is below, dirt falls into it. In a 30 days test on an automatic test we hitched up 30 armatures above magnet and 30 below. We put sawdust into the magnet chamber. We got over 50 ciphers on the one and none on the other. The magnets were operated by automatic circuit breakers. You will be surprised if you put a 6” pressure or even less on the box, at what the armature will lift. Push down on it with a 1/2″ wire nail and you will see it will lift the nail and a lot beside.

I would very much like the drawings of the zinc rolling machine. Send it as soon as you can conveniently.

Our pitch is 440A.

I note a French Horn in the Liverpool scheme. Good work. Are you going to give me credit for it?

This thought has occurred to me. I am quoting your work exclusively and making as much as possible of your Mixtures which I am going to follow up with some articles on my trip to England.

What do you say to a statement that we have entered into an artistic alliance? We are each in the premier position in our country. It cannot fail to be of help to both of us. The thought is very pleasant to me. I have no thought of claiming anything for myself, whatever influence I may have on anything you do over there. It will be entirely in your hands to regulate as you think best. I feel that the idea will help us both, but of course I want you to agree to any statement of this sort, or I cannot make it, however true.

I want a complete 16′ Swell reed such as you put in Westminster Cathedral. I want also to know if you can get a good result with it on a 7½” pressure.

I made a Chorus Mixture exactly as you told me, but to my great surprise I could get no power out of it with that cut up. I had to cut it up considerably more before it would sound with the clang I heard at Westminster.

I have all the models ready to ship. I am sorry that the chest will not show the standard construction of chest with the channels above the wind. The interchangeable chest shows channels below, but you can probably get it from the drawings.

Send me that Mixture and one of the triangular Flutes.

I expect to ship the models as soon as the sample pipes are done.

There is a spring in the secondary of the stop action which stops any pipes sounding when wind comes on. The switches and magnets are fastened to the model of the keyboard for convenience only. If any of the ”tracker touch” pins falls out in shipment you can put them in again.

The movies came out fine. I had a wonderful trip but Holy Moses what a condition in France!

Please take note of the dip of touch and height of sharp, also that sharps are plumb on sides instead of inclined. This gives more room between keys and also the small height of sharps made possible by the ⁵⁄₁₆ dip of key makes it easy to play what are, with the older type, somewhat difficult positions.

Can you send us a four-manual set of your thick ivory keys from the model or drawings we are sending, keeping exactly our design or what do we have to do to get a four manual set every set alike?

Sincerely yours,
E.M.S.

EMS/HML

P.S. Damn Hope-Jones
N.B. By a statement of an artistic alliance I mean on such occasions as we may find it helpful or useful or anyway you perhaps may like to suggest. You may depend on my keeping within the lines that you suggest. I am not looking for any appearance of showing you how to do it. If you think that ever I’ll biff you on the nose. But don’t return the compliment! E.M.S.