George Croft
(1872-1955)

Born in Bermondsey, London in 1872, George Croft’s family emigrated to New Zealand shortly after his second birthday. His father became a builder and contractor in Petone, now a large suburb of Lower Hutt on the northern shore of Wellington Harbour in New Zealand’s North Island. 

Largely self-taught as an organ builder, George Croft was one of a group of self-taught organ builders beginning their careers in New Zealand in the 1890s. Croft began his organ building career in his twenties during that last decade of the 19th century with a handful of instruments including his first, built from 1892-1896 and destroyed by fire in 1897, for the Wellington Industrial Exhibition of 1896-97. His other early instruments have since been substantially rebuilt.

Croft travelled to England aged in his late twenties and worked briefly in the factory of the renowned London organ building firm of William Hill & Son in 1900 and 1901. He also made many valuable trade contacts in the British organ building industry on whom he was later to rely for the supply of high quality metal pipework.

Returning to New Zealand in 1901, George Croft became the most active organ builder in New Zealand for half a century, completing over sixty instruments in his lifetime. He produced the largest number of pipe organs by an individual organ building enterprise in New Zealand’s history and achieved a near-monopoly in the Auckland region for over fifty years.

With sheer determination and adherence to quality materials and skills, Croft’s most substantial instruments were commissioned throughout his career. Large three-manual cathedral, church and concert organs included St Mary’s Cathedral, Auckland (1909); All Saints’ Church, Palmerston North (1929), and the 29-stop concert organ completed in 1922 for the music room of Madron House in Otahuhu, Auckland: Croft’s largest private commission.

George Croft’s ability as a tonal artist and designer of musically satisfying and versatile pipe organs, small or large, coupled with his proven capability as a builder of instruments with outstanding mechanical reliability, left a legacy of pipe organs of technical and tonal excellence unsurpassed by virtually any other Australasian organ builder. 

The quality of Croft’s locally-made components, including soundboards and windchests, prompt exhaust-pneumatic actions, console cabinetry and casework compares favourably with the leading British, European and North American organ builders of his generation. 

Croft combined the highest quality imported metal flue and reed pipework from Britain with his own outstanding craftsmanship as a woodworker. His firm’s handcrafted wooden pipework is of exceptional calibre and used the finest quality old-growth New Zealand timbers unobtainable in the 21st century.  

His son, William ‘Bill’ Croft, continued his business with the company, renamed George Croft & Son Ltd. This was a very active concern and continued the manufacture and reconstruction of a large number of New Zealand’s pipe organs, including some of the country’s largest. 

Upon the retirement of Bill Croft in 1969, the company was under the governing directorship of Kenneth Aplin, who had moved to New Zealand in 1964, before being dissolved in 1988.

From an article by Michael A. Cox in The Organ: An Encyclopedia by Douglas Earl Bush and Richard Kassel, and with thanks to Dr Ronald G. Newton.