ABSTRACT
This period has long been dominated by the name and reputation of Bernard Smith (d. 1708). It cannot be said to be dominated by his actual work, since it is now clear that no chamber organ can actually be attributed to him with any confidence. Nevertheless, some surviving examples share characteristics which could indicate the influence if not the actual work of Smith. It may well be that he set standards of design and workmanship in this field which a number of his contemporaries chose to follow, or even that chamber organs made by others were sold under his aegis. However, traditional attributions unsupported by concrete evidence are no longer acceptable and must be disregarded. Meanwhile many questions remain unanswered, not least the role in chamber organ-making of Smith's great rival Renatus Harris. It is curious that so far no extant chamber organ has ever been conclusively linked either by fact or by tradition with Harris's workshop, although in recent years some tentative suggestions have been made, as will be seen. On the other hand, Harris is known to have built a chamber organ in 1676 for one Thomas Whiting, who later presented it to the parish of St Botolph Aldgate; here it became the nucleus of a new organ, of which some pipework still exists. 1
