portrait: Photograph from an archival source: callahan, submitted by organ cow. Taken on 1940-01-01
From Organ Database Builders editor Stephen Hall, October 3, 2019. —
Aubrey Thompson-Allen established the firm in New Haven, Connecticut in 1951. The firm was continued by Nicholas Thompson-Allen and Joseph F. Dzeda after Aubrey Thompson-Allen retired in 1973. The firm expanded its scope to preserving and restoring the remaining instruments of the Skinner and Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company. It has also restored electro-pneumatic instruments by other builders from that era.
Source:
From the OHS PC Database, derived from A Guide to North American Organbuilders, by David H. Fox (Richmond, Va.: Organ Historical Society, 1991). —
Aubrey Thompson-Allen was born 1907 in Scarborough, England; he was the father of Nicholas Thompson-Allen.
He was an apprentice with Henry Willis & Sons, 1922; becoming superintendent 1927; director, 1932; and managing director, 1939-1945.
He left Willis and England in 1949, immigrating to the United States. He began with the Aeolian-Skinner firm of Boston, Massachusetts, 1949, as an assistant to G. Donald Harrison; he established his own firm in New Haven, Connecticut; he was with Yale University of New Haven, Connecticut, 1951, as curator of organs; the firm he established was continued by his son, Nicholas Thompson-Allen and Joseph F. Dzeda.
Sources:
We received the most recent update for this note from Database Manager on October 02, 2019.