BARKER Charles, Spackmann (1807-1879)

The man who gave his name to a "pneumatic lever" then a "machine" designed to improve the traction of the keys and the keyboard couplers, which made it easier for the organist to play, was baptised at Bath in England on January 7 1807. He was orphaned at five and was brought up by the rest of the family. He had an ingenious mind and suggested ways of making advances in organ building to the English organ builders. But they had no confidence in him.
In France at the first annual general meeting of the S.E.I.N , in 1802, the idea of "spreading the light of learning" was brought up and Count de Lasteyrie, vice president of the French Society, proposed that courses be organised as in London, at the Royal Institution founded by Rumford the first foreign associate member of S.E.I.N, and his friend Tomlinson, "to give this idea a concrete expression". (L'Industrie Nationale, Paris, 1996). The idea gained ground. Corresponding branches of the Société d'Encouragement à l'Industrie Nationale (France) were set up in lawyers offices to "interpret letters patent in France; write descriptions and make drawings, manage legal proceedings against counterfeiters, do the correspondence for applications for letters of patent without having to go to England, Holland, Austria, America etc." It was in this capacity that the lawyer, Antoine Perpigna, in practice at No 2 rue de Choiseul since 1820, acted and filed the letters patent for the pneumatic action device by Mr. Charles Spackmann Barker, on June 6 1839. He was entered in Cavaillé-Coll's register of employees between May 2 1839 and 15 January 1840. The commercial interest aroused at the time of his collaboration with Cavaillé-Coll and the major role the invention had played in the triumph of the Royal Church of Saint-Denis monumental organ, attracted the attention of Henri Place who, through the April 5 1841 agreement, acted on behalf of Mr. Cavaillé-Coll. But Barker wanted to keep his independence and, without the knowledge of the above parties, signed another agreement on June 9 1841 with the Daublaine and Callinet Company which he had joined. The competition he stirred up between the two rival companies was fuelled by the journalist, Félix Danjou's pen. This success encouraged Barker to move to France…with an English wife, Emma Barker, the daughter of an artist, whom he married in Bath on October 21 1841. His name did not appear on the guest list for the public inauguration of the St. Denis organ in September of the same year. He and his wife had three children: Charles I (January 1 1843-April 1843), Charles II (1845-1846) and Marie-Emma-Victorine (1848-1854).

On December 16 1844, Barker accidentally set fire to the Saint-Eustache organ and Mr. Cavaillé-Coll almost rejoiced over it. Through this catastrophe the unlucky man caused the downfall of the Daublaine Company. which was already very much threatened by Mr. Cavaillé-Coll's successes. It was bought by Ducroquet, the instrument builder in June of the same year, and later taken over by the Merklin Company. Charles Spackmann Barker, who had remained with the company, left with the foreman, Charles Verschneider, because of incompatibility. They remained together till the latter's death in 1865. Mrs. Emma Barker died in Paris on May 31 1866. Alone and childless, Charles returned to England where he died at Maidstone on November 26 1879, in complete obscurity.