IMPROVEMENTS IN ORGANS AND HARMONIUMB
Year: 1865

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Ralph Smyth, of Hampton Court, in the County of
Middlesex, Retired Lieutenant-Colonel of Her Majesty's Indian Army,
for the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS IN ORGANS AND HARMONIUMB."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Ralph Smyth at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
25th February 1865.
I, RALPH SMYTH, of Hampton Court, in the County of Middlesex, Retired
Lieutenant-Colonel of Her Majesty's Indian Army, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN ORGANS AND HARMONIUMS,"
to be as follows:-
"
This Invention is intended to facilitate the use of the pedals for the small
or chamber organs with foot blowers, and to apply them in the same manter
to the harmonium, in adapting which a means of regulating the stops of the
bass of the instrument throwing the sound into the lowest octave, or into all
the octaves at pleasure, is applied, as also a means of regulating the sound
by a greater or less pressure of the fingers on the notes. The first is effected
by a knee action, independent of the feet, consisting of a series of eight
projecting knobs or pedals, and four flaps placed in front of the instrument,
and accessible to the knees of the performer, six for each knee, and which
pedals communicate by means of hinges, springs, and lifters to a corresponding
set of bars of metal or wood (one for each pedal), the which working on
metal or wooden axles, placed at equal distances from the ends, communicate

page_text: with the notes of the instrument by means of wires, these bars being placed
in two rows one over the other, and contained in a compartment under the
notes of the instrument, the advantage of this being that the performer can
work the bellows by means of the footboards with his feet in the usual
manner, and play the pedal notes of the last octave with bis knees.
The second, viz., throwing the sound into the lowest octave at pleasure, is
effected by dividing the air compartment for each stop (except the percussion
one) into two separate compartments, one containing the reeds only of the
twelve notes of the lowest octave, and applying a valve to the other compart-
ment, which opens or shuts, admitting or excluding the air from the bellows
to the two compartments, or to the lower octave compartment only, as may be
required, according as the stop on the instrument is drawn, a regulator or
catch by means of a spring being made on the stop to indicate whether the
air is admitted to one or both compartments, thus enabling the performer to
throw the power of a stop into the lowest octave, or into all the bass octaves
at pleasure.
The third, viz., a means of regulating the sound by a greater or less pressure
of the fingers, is effected by the application of wooden tongues, the tips of
which are covered with leather, fastened below and to the notes of the instru-
ment, exactly over and touching the centre opening of the swell or blinds
beneath, and so opening or closing the swells according as the notes are
pressed more or less by the fingers.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Ralph Smyth in the Great Seal Patent Office on the 25th
August 1865.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, RALPH
SMYTH, of Hampton Court, in the County of Middlesex, Retired Lieutenant-
Colonel in Her Majesty's Indian Army, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-fifth day of February, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, in the twenty-eighth year of Her
reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the
said Ralph Smyth, Her special licence that I, the said Ralph Smyth, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Ralph
Smyth, my executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree
with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter during

page_text: 66
the term therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise,
and vend, within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the
Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, an Invention for IMPROVEMENTS IN
ORGANS AND HARMONIUMS," upon the condition (amongst others) that I, the
said Ralph Smyth, my executors or administrators, by an instrument in
writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should par-
ticularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in
what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be filed
in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Ralph Smyth, do hereby declare
the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:
My Invention refers, firstly, to a method of applying pedals acted on by
the knees to organs, harmoniums, and similar musical instruments to enable
the performer to sound the notes of the lower or bass octave independent of
the action of his hands, at the same time that he can work the footboards
communicating with the bellows with his feet to supply air to the instrument,
each pedal sounding a note when pressed by the knee, and which I call the
"knee-action pedal note." The combined series of pedals I call the "knee-
action pedal board."
Secondly, to a method for regulating the stops of the harmonium by which
the lower bass octave can be made to sound separately (by means of the knee
action pedal) from the other bass octaves or together at pleasure.
Thirdly, to a method for increasing or decreasing the sound by a greater
or lesser pressure of the fingers on the notes.
Having thus explained the general features of my Invention, I will describe
the means by which the same is or may be carried into effect.
In the first, Fig. 1. in the annexed Drawing represents the front of a
harmonium, and Fig. 2 the side view or section. In Fig. 1 the bar or lever a,
working on a central axle halfway at G, is made of brass, and connected at
one end to the note on the keyboard by means of a thin brass wire working in
an aperture c at that end of the bar, and passing upwards to the note, below
which it is affixed, the wire having an eye formed at the end, passing into a
small metal hook fixed underneath the note at 6; the other end of the wire
passing through the aperture c is secured by a small wooden nut screwed on
to catch in the bar. The other end of the bar a is connected by means of a
piece of brass 7, called the lifter, one end of which passes through an aper-

page_text: ture in the end of the bar at d, and is secured by a small wooden nut screwed:
on, and the other end passes through the end of the lever of the pedal at e, as
shewn in Fig. 2.
The knee pedal, which may be varied in shape, is shewn in Fig. 2. .It is
made of wood, and moves by means of a hinge on the centre A, and is also
connected to the instrument by an iron wire f passing through the pedal
board, having at one end a small wooden screw nut 9, the other end being
screwed into the pedal. A spiral spring his placed between the pedal and'
the pedal board on this wire. The note being thus attached to the knee
pedal, and the pedal pushed with the knee, the lever A, e, raises the lifter q,
which in its turn raises the bar a at the end d (Fig. 1), depressing the other
end at c, and so drawing down the note on the keyboard. On the knee being
withdrawn, the spiral spring h causes the pedal to resume its original position,
and the note rises again on the keyboard. The wire connecting the note with
the bar at c plays loosely in the aperture, so that the note, if the pedal is not
used, can be played by the finger, the wire passing up and down in the aper-
ture at c.. These bars are placed under the keyboard in two rows, seven in
the lower row, and six in the upper row, comprising one octave of notes, and
are so disposed as not to interfere with one another. Any number of bars
and pedals up to one full octave (the length of each bar varying according to
the distance the note on the keyboard is from the position of the pedal
affecting it) can be thus applied. The length of the pedal board from c to c
one full octave, should not exceed twenty inches, this distance being equally
divided amongst the pedals. The two outer pedals c and c, for convenience
of arrangement and space, are made to push outwards, the same mechanism
being applicable in the interior. The pedal board, as shewn in Fig. 1, is
made with the pedals arranged in two arcs, the radius of each being the
length from the knee to the centre of the music stool, or eighteen to twenty
inches, each knee therefore passes through an are of ten inches. The pedals
are colored similar to the notes on the keyboard, viz., a light color for the
white notes, and black for the black or flat and sharp notes.
In the second, I divide each air compartment of each of the stops of the
bass into two compartments, one compartment containing the lower octave,
and the other the remaining notes. In the latter compartment I close up the
opening communicating with the air reservoir below, with the exception of an
aperture of one inch in diameter around the wooden knob or projection, on
which the lever of the stop works. Between the brass T-head screwed on to
this wooden knob and the knob itself I affix horizontally a circular wooden
valve a, b, one and a half inches diameter. It will be seen at once that

page_text: when the stop is full-drawn (see Fig. 6) this circular valve will close up the
circular opening around the wooden knob, and exclude the air from that
compartment, leaving it free to enter the smaller compartment, and that when
the stop is half-drawn (see Fig. 5) this circular valve will not close up this
opening, and the air will then have freedom to enter both compartments.
I regulate the stop itself by cutting away a portion of the upper part as far as
the stop is to be half-drawn, and placing a small spiral spring = below to check.
it at that point.
Figs. 4, 5, and 6 represent the three positions of the, stop, and the corre-
sponding effect on the valves in the air compartment, where the stop half-
drawn (Fig. 5) represents both valves open, and the stop full drawn, Fig. 6,
represents the upper valve shut, but the lower open, excluding the air from
the larger compartment, but admitting it to the smaller compartment.
Fig. 4 represents the stop undrawn. As an example of the use of being
enabled thus to regulate the stops, I suppose a performer to be desirous of
playing with the cor-Anglais and clarion stops in the bass, and of adding a
pedal accompaniment of the bourdon in the lower octave, he would then half
draw the cor-Anglais and clarion stops, and full draw the bourdon stop; or,
if he wished to play the cor-Anglais stop only in the bass, and add the
bassoon and bourdon stops to the lower octave as a pedal accompaniment, he
would then half draw the cor-Anglais stop, and full draw the basscon and
bourdon stops, and so on, according to any variation the stops will admit of.
In the third, Fig. 3 represents the section of a note on the keyboard of the
instrument or harmonium. I fix a small wooden tongue A, armed with
leather at the point, underneath each note; this tongue, as the note is pressed
down more or less, opens the blinds or swells situated beneath, and causes
them (as the note is pressed down to the dotted position) to assume the
dotted position, as shewn in the Figure, so increasing or diminishing the
sound.
Having now described the nature of my Invention, and the manner in
which the same is to be performed, I would remark, in conclusion, that I do
not limit myself to the precise details and configuration of parts I have
expressed and shewn, as the same may obviously be varied or modified
without in any way departing from the principles on which the Invention is
based; but what I claim and desire to be secured to me by the herein in part
recited Letters Patent are, the improvements in organs and harmoniums
substantially as herein specified, viz.,-
First, the knee-action pedal note and the series of pedals constituting
the knee-action pedal board.

page_text: Secondly, the method of applying such series of pedals acted on by the
knees to organs, harmoniums, or similar musical instruments.
Thirdly, the method of regulating the stops of the harmonium by which the
lower bass octave can be made to play separately from the remaining notes or
together at pleasure.
Fourthly, the method. of increasing or decreasing the sound gradually by a
greater or lesser pressure of the fingers on the keyboard.
In witness. whereof, I, the said Ralph Smyth, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Fifteenth day of August, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and sixty-five.
Witness,
J. D. SHAKESPEAR, Lt.-Col'.,
58, Warrior Square,
St. Leonards-on-Sea.
Lt. Col. Retd. Bengal Army.