Louis Hooghuys - Grammont

As far as can be traced, the musical side of the Hooghuys family started with Gerrit Simon Hooghuys being baptized at Wormer (NL) on January 1st 1754 (there is no official confirmation on the date of his birth). In 1806, Gerrit moved from Middelburg (NL) to Brugge (B), where he notified in a local newspaper the following (in translation): “GERARDUS HOOGHUYS, Organ builder, has the honour to inform the public that he has come to live in this town Brugge in the Vlaemingstreet near the Vlaemingbridge; he charges himself with the building of new Organs, and the repair of old ones, all at moderate prices.”

Whom Gerrit Simon learned the trade of organbuilding from, is unknown, perhaps from his father. He died on January 24th 1813.

Simon Gerard Hooghuys, the eldest son of Gerrit Simon, was born at Middelburg on February 14th 1780 and died at Brugge on October 21st 1853.

Louis Benoit Hooghuys, third son of Simon Gerard, was born at Brugge on 21 March 1822. Here we certainly meet the greatest church organ building of this family. In 1854 already, he was established as organ builder. His work shows both great craftsmanship and knowledge: his organ building skills rested upon the gradual simplification of the late Baroque organ to an early Romantic instrument. Examination on the dispositions of his instruments indicates that for Louis Benoit Hooghuys, the merge of soft timbre registers was more important than the contrast between loud expressive ones.

Louis Benoit died in Brugge on 16 April 1885. Many of his instruments can still be seen and heard throughout Flanders and even abroad. It is said that after Louis Benoit the quality of the church organs gradually decayed because of the mechanization of the production process. François Bernard Hooghuys, Louis Benoit's younger brother, was born in Brugge on November 15th 1830. In 1865, we find him as his brother's assistant. In 1869, he settled at Geraardsbergen (Grammont), and it is supposed that from that time onwards (and later with his eldest son Louis François), he went to work in the prosperous church organ works of Charles Anneessens at Geraardsbergen. He died in this city on November 30th 1888.

On 14 May 1856, the most famous member of the Hooghuys family was born: Louis François Hooghuys. Although he was a good craftsman concerning church organs (he learned a good deal from his father and he also worked for some time in the Anneessens firm at Geraardsbergen), he decided to switch to the building of mechanical barrel organs. So, in 1880, the Manufacture d'orgues mécaniques Louis Hooghuys was established: it was one of the oldest firms in this field in Belgium! At first, Louis François hired a workplace in the Mill Street in Geraardsbergen but eventually, in 1882, he moved to the Place de la Station in the same city.

The workmen were treated in a – for that time – very human way: for example, the working hours were very flexible. During it's most active period, the firm counted about 15 working people. Unfortunately, a lot of valuable factory documents have been lost, due to the fact that German soldiers were billeted in the building during the first World War (this loss makes it hard to say how many instruments Louis François Hooghuys built exactly). Remarkable in any way is that a lot of people who started building music instruments in the region of Geraardsbergen, made their first steps in the Hooghuys factory, such as Theodorus Bruylandt, who – afterwards – sold barrel piano's. Furthermore, several family members worked in the factory: Edgard Georges (Louis' brother), who pinned barrels and arranged organ books; also two other brothers of Louis: François Louis (1858-?) was responsible for the pipework while Edouard Joseph (1862-1925) was involved with the pneumatic parts of the organs. Victor Valère (1904-1978) – son of Edgard Georges – also worked in the firm for some time as a book puncher.

Initially, the company only built barrel organs; however, large examples haven't been preserved save on pictures. The first book organ was delivered in about 1900, and it was quite special, because it was rebuilt from barrel to book mechanism, while it retained the possibility to play barrels (by means of a double mechanism). From that moment, the Hooghuys firm built several types of organs: small and ‘normal' fair organs as well as dance organs. Not only did Hooghuys make new instruments, he also repaired and restored organs from other builders (Bruder, Gavioli, …); judging from factory ledgers, these activitities seem to have been a bigger source of income than new organs. Compared to other organ builders, like Mortier, Hooghuys built relatively few instruments. The construction of a new instrument was only started after careful consultation of the client and his wishes; moreover, also Louis Hooghuys' benevolence played a role: he didn't want to build just anything! Clients always had to pay a small advance. This whole ‘procedure' helps to explain the small number of new instruments. On the other hand, Hooghuys quickly gained a good reputation in Belgium and abroad, which is proved by e.g. the fact that he delivered a new organ to the Dutch carousel owner L.Vincken; furthermore, organ builder Chiappa in London ordered several instruments from Hooghuys. The man who was responsible for the assembly of these instruments (which were usually delivered without a façade) in England was Julius Bartholomeus Vander Beken; later on, he would start a (small) organ building firm himself in Edingen (Enghien, B). He probably built only a few instruments (anyhow, only a handful of them have survived …)

There was never any mass production in the Hooghuys firm: almost every part was made by hand, and not two organs were ever the same. Some parts – like drums, carvinds and metal pipes – were ordered from external suppliers, like Laukhuff from Germany (for lead tubings), Devos (for carvings) and Moeremans (for drums) in Gent, … It is striking that for the same parts, Hooghuys sometimes chose another supplier: this indicates that Louis François not only always wanted the best products but also the most profitable ones. In the same way, he was always looking for a better combination and disposition of the pipework, which resulted in the fact that each organ was a masterpiece in its own right. It is also certain that Hooghuys had contacts with foreign (esp. German) firms, particularly orchestrion builders like Imhof & Mukle and Hupfeld.

The bloom of the Hooghuys firm lasted till the First World War; afterwards, the production was rather limited. Organs from before 1914-1918 were built up to the highest standards, without any compromise; instruments from after the war had be produced at a cheaper rate. To support his organ building business after 1918, Louis sold gramophones and records (a.o. of the Zonophone-company) – although he already did this before 1910: originally, these sales were not necessary as a source of income. It is also important to know that Louis was a very conservative man: illustrative is the fact that he refused to build organs with 12 basses; he kept to the old scale with 8 basses. Moreover, he didn't give several of his instruments a chromatic scale, while other organ builders did so. Louis François died on 16 November 1924 after a protracted illness. After his death, the firm actually ceased to exist. The main reason for this stop were the disagreements between Louis' two eldest sons: Charles François (1878-1951) and Edmond François (1882-1963). One of the reasons for this discord was the fact that after the death of his first wife, Louis had married a much younger woman (Maria Hortentia De Vlaeminck).

Charles François Hooghuys, born in Geraardsbergen on 15 April 1878, was the eldest son of Louis but was not so talented as Edmond both on craftmanship and music. For that reason, and because Louis François did better get on with Edmond, Louis François considered the latter as his successor – something Charles couldn't stand. Edmond kept on restoring and tuning organs until his death in 1963, while Charles stopped all activities at latest in 1939 (probably even earlier). Although there are some Hooghuys organs with the name “Ch.Hooghuys” on it, it should be mentioned that Charles François probably never built a completely new organ himself, but only finished some work that was left when his father died and maintained some organs. At the time of Louis' death, two organs were still to be completed: the LH650 (84-key) and LH670 (58-key), now both in the possession of Jasper Sanfilippo in Illinois (USA). Charles also assembled the 70-key CH660 (now owned by Teddy Reed in Amersham (UK)) and he provided some organs with a Hooghuys key frame: the CH655 (51-key, originally a Ruth), the CH665 (51-key, builder unknown), the CH675 (78-key, built by Pierre Eich, no longer extant) and the CH680 (73-key, originally a Wellershaus). Charles also maintained some organs. After the death of Louis, Charles bought half of the factory building at the Place de la Station (the other part was sold to a furniture manufacturer). In that house, he opened a café for the brewery “Zeeberg” from Aalst; where he placed a Hooghuys dance organ (the LH620, now in possession of Bill Nunn (USA)). He sold this instrument to a showman in 1931. In 1938 Charles sold his house and workshop to the brewerey mentioned above but it was only in 1940 that he moved to another address (Kloosterstraat 24), while his only son Romain Charles took over the café for a while.

Most people who have a Hooghuys organ, will undoubtedly know Romain Charles Hooghuys. He was born in Geraardsbergen on 22 July 1901. A lot of music patterns by Romain Charles have been preserved, dating from 1921 to 1931, which means that he has cut organ books for about eleven years. Around 1930 he also acted as a pianist in the local jazz-band “The Berkeley Boys”. After that time he started a commerce in beer for the same brewery (Zeeberg) for which his father kept the café mentioned above. Probably he had this business until the outbreak of World War II, when he was drafted. In 1944, Romain left Geraardsbergen for some reason, and went to live in Galmaarden (B). There he opened a shop for newspapers, magazines, stationery and sweets. He also had a commerce in coffee for a certain time, and was occasionally organist in the local church . In 1951, after his father's death, he moved back to Geraardsbergen with his family to live with his mother in the Kloosterstreet 12. Two years later, in 1953, he moved to the Belgian coast; he lived successively in Zuienkerke, Lissewege, Wenduine, Zeebrugge and Brugge.

It was in Lissewege in about 1955 that he purchased the LH615 (83-key), which is now in the museum at Utrecht (NL), and from then on he sporadically started cutting cardboard music again. In the early sixties, he bought the LH507 (93-key), a dance organ with the Gavioli G4-scale (the Hooghuys firm built several organs with this scale). Unfortunately, he dismantled this organ to have spare parts. In November 1963, he bought the 72-key LH518 – better known as the “Senior” – and from 1968 on, he played with that organ on a folkloristic market in Knokke-Heist (B) every year on Thursday afternoon during summer; it was from that time on that he started fulltime cutting organ books again.

Around 1965, he bought (at a comparatively low price) the LH605 (97-key), which he called the “Condor”, and in October 1971, he purchased the LH552 (73-key), which is now in the possession of Romain's son Marc (now it is named “Albatross”).

Romain Charles kept on arranging music for his organs until 1978, when he moved to Brugge, near the Boudewijnpark (a theme park). There he made about another ten books, but in about 1985, when his wife's health began to fail, he stopped cutting books for ever. On 15 December 1989, he died after being severely injured in an accident. His wife died on the day of his funeral …

Fortunately, Romain Charles has a worthy successor in his son, Marc Herwig Hooghuys, who is actually the last member of the Hooghuys family who engages himself in the world of mechanical organs. In this field, he does more than an excellent job. Apart from maintaining other Hooghuys organs, he also is working on the restoration of his own Hooghuys organ, the above mentioned 73-key “Albatross”.

For more information and pictures: visit the Hooghuys Organ Pages!