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The organ is controlled from a two-manual Wurlitzer console, which was originally incorrectly believed to have come from the organ at the Strand Theatre, Hobart, Tas. The Strand’s Wurlitzer, however, had a piano-style console.

The console at Pomona is of the pre-1923 “Panel” style, with feathered brackets, and in my opinion, is most probably from the seven-rank Wurlitzer installed in the De Luxe Theatre, Melbourne, in 1922, and moved to the Paramount/Lyceum Theatre, Melbourne in 1928. That organ was removed in 1945 and incorporated in the second organ at the Regent Theatre, Melbourne. Its console was not used there.

Only the original console casing and pedalboard remain, the manuals, stopkeys and internal mechanisms having being replaced, so it is not possible positively to identify its source.

Photo: Ron West

The console is located at the left-hand side of the theatre, and the single pipe chamber is on the right, speaking through shutters originally built for the unused echo chamber of the organ at the Prince Edward Theatre, Sydney. In time, there will be another chamber on the left-hand side.

The original pipework (three ranks) comprised a Violin Diapason at 8 ft. and 4 ft., a stopped metal Tibia (the pipes of which are curiously engraved “Tuba Plena”), at 16 , 8, 4, 2 2/3, 2 and 1 3/5 ft., and Céleste at 8 ft. (Tenor C only) and 4 ft., now tuned as a normal rank.

Contributed by Greg Lynch -