The organ factory Gebrüder Wellershaus

by Jan LM van Dinteren

translation: Hans van Oost. First issued in Het Pierement 2001/2, p. 70-77

The well-known factory of Wellershaus was active from 1832 in the German village of Saarn, now a suburb of the city Mülheim-Ruhr. De founding of the factory was in 1793 in Remscheid, where Wilhelm Wellershaus (1764-1821) started to make and repair standing clocks; later he also built church organs.

In 1832 his son, Friedrich Wilhelm Wellershaus (1796-1856), then aged 36, started his business in Saarn. He specialized himself in building church organs and, besides these, made "Tafelklaviere". His son Julius (1828-1911) gradually changed from the building of church organs to Leierkasten, starting with small types. After some time, when the fairground attractions grew in size, the organs grew with them. At last organs with no less than 140 keys were built. When Mrs. Wellershaus used to hear a pleasing melody she used to hurry to the organ factory to sing it to her husband, who put it on paper immediately. Sheet music of new popular songs was rarely available, and this was the way to solve that problem.

Julius had two sons: August (1861-1927) and Wilhelm (1876-1910). These two brothers founded the original firm Gebrüder Wellershaus. August was the one who kept on extending the factory and buying new machines. Among the products of the factory were Jahrmarktorgeln and orchestrions. The barrel organs were made with great care and beauty. The larger models had lots of moving figures - sometimes three rows one above the other- and rotatinf pillars. They were often illuminated by petroleum lamps. While most organ prosceniums of that time were in black with gilded edges and decorations, Wellershaus brothers were the first to make use of white painted fronts. From then on more and more bright fairground colours were used.

Another invention of the Brothers was the positioning of the keyframe. This used to be on the back of the organ chest. By turning it around a quarter of a circle to the right book chests with endless strips could be used. For this system a patent was applied for and granted. Later other organ builders made use of it.

On January 1st, 1904, the villages of Broich, Saarn and Speldorf were annexed by Mühlheim a/d Ruhr. Wellershaus organs built before that date have "Saarn a/d Ruhr" on the front, like the organ of Mr. Van Bussel in Asten. After that date several different abbrevations were used: M. Ruhr-Saarn, Mülh. R. Saarn or Mühlheim. R. Saarn.

Probably the Wellershaus Brothers stuck to the building of barrel organs longer than any other German organ factory. In a letter from 1919 the following listing can be found:

Prices were in Dutch Florins, while the letter is in German. Presumably the letter was meant for a Dutch customer.

All organs play both loudly and softly. Styles I and II have two-row mixture ranks 4' and 2'; from style III on all organs have three-row mixtures with a fifth 2 2/3'. Style VII also has glockenspiel and cello basses. Book organs also have drums and a cymbel.

Later history

From 1911 on the firm started building and repairing pianos besides the organs. This work emerged from the building of orchestrions. August had two sons: August jr. (1897-1965) and Emil (1900-1969). These two later took over the Wellershaus firm. August jr. had a son Helmut (born 1925), who also worked with the firm.

The acts of war did not pass the firm without damage. In 1944 the factory was devastated completely by Allied bombings. Huge stocks of spare parts, especially organ pipes, and 43 organs were destroyed. With great care the factory was rebuilt after WW II on the same spot. After the war he firm built pianos and did repairs and rebuildings to fairground organs. Book music was still made, but business was declining by then.

Around 1963, after my visits to August Wellershaus, he looked after a 55-key and a 58-key Wellershaus organ, both owned by the late Jos Hoefnagels in Helmond. He had a lot of pleasure in this work, as he wrote in a letter. He also worked with the late Max Eysbouts in Asten (a carillon maker) Later the whole inventory of the firm (organs, punching machine and paper music was bought by Mr. Hoefnagels, who later sold them. It is unclear who bought the music sheets. Jos Hoefnagels kept the 59 Tonstufen Wellershaus and put it into his carousel, which went later to his son-in-law Rinus Brunselaar, from whom it came into possession of Rinus'son Wim.

Thus came an end to the Gebr. Wellershaus'activities. Several members of the family were buried on the Aubergfriedhof in Mülheim-Ruhr-Saarn. Two children of August II are known: Helmut (1925) and Judith. It was difficult to get any information about Judith, because August and Emil did not have any contact in the later years. Helmus Wellershaus was Klavierbaumeister and had his premises in the Friedrichstrasse 1 (Pianohaus Helmut Wellershaus - Meisterbetrieb für Klavier- und Harmoniumbau. The business has ceased to exist.

In 1986, Helmut and his sister Judith with family visited a fair organ enthusiasts day in Roermond and lestened to the 58 keyless Wellershaus of Willy Scheffer. In a letter dated 20th November 1986 they expressed their satisfaction for hearing this organ, ehich keeps up the families name.

Gebr. Wellershaus fairground organs in the Netherlands

Starting from 58 keyless styles the following Gebr. Wellershaus organs are known of. The list is not complete.

(listing follows)

to the pictures:

p. 70: Big style keyless organ, owned by the renting firm J.A. Eeerdenburg in Rotterdam. On the front to the left the name WIC Van der Touw can be read. Picture taken about 1906, probably inside a dance hall. (photo: collection JLM van Dinteren)

p. 72: image from the 1895-103 catalog (38 pages). In this catalog only barrel organs are mentioned, ranging from models 25 to 86. The smallest model (on this page) had 48 keys. The description is: Violin organ with clarinets, too heavy to be carried, 15 brass clarinets visible, 19 violin pipes, 19 piccolos visible, 12 notes for accompanimens and bass, 64 bars of music on the barrel. Price was 550 Mark, additional barrels cost 90 Mark.

p.73: Style 58 is an "Organ with 100 keys, consisting of bass- and accompaniment pipes, violin voices, conical flutes, trumpets wits additional rank, bass trumpets, tuba's, a mixture which can be switched off, 10 pieces of music, 80 waltz bars, to the proscenium three figures are attached, 1 conductor, who  tilts his head and lifts the arm to the music, and two bell ringers or trumpeters." The price was 3500 Mark, spare barrels cost 350 Mark. Style 59, with a similar front, had 108 keys and was a bit more expensive.

p. 76: 68 keyless Wellershaus keyless organ, built before WW I, in the first steam carousel of J.W. Janvier. Later owned by Piepke Ropers, who uesd it in his steam yachts. The organ has been owned for the last decades by the family of Theo de Voer in Ulvenhout. The head and inner side figures are not original anymore. (picture collection M. van Boxtel)

p. 77: Style 85 had 118 keys, 9 moving figures, including the director. This organ was not the biggest one from the catalog: style 84 had 132 keys, mainly used for the movements of the 14 figures.

Vol. 2 of this article was issued in Het Pierement, 2002/1, p. 8-15:

In HP April 2002 on pages 70-77 an article was published as an addition of an earlier publication from 1956 about the Wellershaus factory. Recently new information could be retrieved by which some mistakes could be corrected, under which the ancestry files.

Of old the Wellershaus firm shipped many organs abroad. After WW I the export to many countries faded away. Belgium forbade the import of all German products, including organs. Belgian and French organ builders took good profits of that. The aversion against all that was German was big. The front of a 58 keyless organ, now in the collection of H. Geven in Venray, was changed by filing away the name of Wellershaus.

Wellershaus tried to work cheaper trying out a special construction of the wind chest, which was thought to be 25% cheaper. A patent was applied for, but it is questionable if this was granted, for nothing can be found in the register. Despite of the export limitations the Wellershaus brothers gave a proud declaration: "even nowadays our organs are playing all over the world, even in Cape Town and on the island of Java (Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia)." After WW I the prosceniums were made less elaborately sculptured, and the pneumatic systems were simplified. The scales were changed in order to be able to play more modern music. Wellershaus specialist Henning Ballmann will write an article about this later.

Times were changing.... Wellershaus started to build pianos, coming from the orchestrion business with built-in piano. After waiting for the cat to jump -but it actually did- they started to make gramophones (Sprechapparate). In the beginning this was not a threat to the organ building business, but after further developments, under which the possibilities of electrical amplification, the influence grew more and more. The amplificated music on fairgrounds bagan to exceed that of the organs. More and more fairground people started to look at organs as expensive, superfluous and old-fashioned: "It saves me a complete waggon in transport!" Organs were demolished and put into the furnace, which is also known to the writer of this article.

The firm employed about 8 workers, under whom Fritz Becker, Nieten and Franz Fasold. The painting of the new prosceniums was done by others; Gebr. Heiligenpohl in Duisburg. Paper and carton was bought from the Solinger Papierfabrik Jagenberg & Co. The figures also were made in Duisburg; in the early days they were made by the Demetz firm in St. Ulrich (in Austria till 1918, now in Italy).

Wellershaus did not always have an easy time when it came to payment. Many organs were sold on terms. In those days, when telephone was not generally in use - not to mention more modern means of communication- it was possible for malevolent showmen to get away without payment. "Vanished with unknown destination" can be read on a number of envelopes. Franz Meeven from Aachen (D) promptly paid for his organ. He is known by his 81 keyless organ from 1925, which now is in Mr. Cushing's collection in Thursford GB.

When the whereabouts of a showman with arrears became known and a letter was sent, they often came up with stange arguments why they could not pay. A bad season was very common. But I read a letter from a client near Düren: "Should I dig a hole in the ground to find money? or will it grow on my back? Or do I have to grab someone by the throat to force money out of him?" In some instances, when it came to civil procedures the court concluded Wellershaus' demands were dismissed "because the organ was part of the attraction, and that attraction could not run without it!" A bundle with lots of dunning letters is still there, always bearing the same names of the same barristers offices.

Not in 1944, as stated earlier, but in 1943 Mülheim was bombed by the Allies. The factory on the Düsseldorfer Strasse suffered extensive damage. No personal harm was done, but 43 organs of all sizes were destroyed. Hundreds of organ pipes and other parts were lost. These pipes varied in length between 3 centimetres to 2 metres. Also many music strips, hand-written documents measurements and mensure tables from great-grandad Johann Friedrich were lost.

After WW II it was difficult to make a new start. Licenses of the occupying powers were needed. On August 2nd 1945 a request was made for the re-opening of the factory of organ- and piano building at the Düsseldorferstrasse 146-152 and the re-opening of a music shop. In this request they had to state how high the assessable amount of 1944 was. They filled in that this was unknown, but that it was DM 17.063 in 1943. The annual sale in 1944 was DM 14.067. As foundation year of the company 1885 was stated. The demands for energy also had to be stated: 500 kilograms of coal, 75 KW of electricity, 30 cm3 of gas (???) and 5 litres of petrol. Furthermore they stated that they had three workers and an assistant  in 1938. In 1945 there were only two workers.

On November 19, 1945 a license was granted to August II and Emil Wellershaus to re-open business, under numbr 492. Referrence was made to the submission of 2-12-1930, section A, number 52. As workers were stated Friedrich Becker, b. 11-5-1879 in Saarn, organ- and piano builder, working here since 1930, not a war invalid, and Emma Wellershaus, b. 16-3-1903 in Saarn, music trader, working here since 1930, not a war invalid Emmas was a daughter of August I and a sister of August II. Signed Mülheim (Ruhr) 18-2-1946 and undersigned by August II and Emil Wellershaus. A document by the Military Authorities in Mulheim-Ruhr was dated 7th December 1945 - MG Det. No. 228 and granted permission to sell commercial recordings.

A recovery seemed to come from Brazil, when 500 pianos were ordered from Wellershaus. Unfortunately the buildings of the factory were far too much damaged to accept the order. Designs had already been made and it was hoped to be able to start the production within a short time. Other orders arrived from British East Africa. It is not known if these orders were ever executed.

Emil Wellershaus (1900-1969) had one son Friedhelm (1930-1936). August II Wellershaus (1897-1965) had one son Helmut (1925-1994) who was not an organ builder, but had a music shop. He did not have children. The daughter Judith (b. 1926) was married to Klaus Kobbelt. These two family branches are doomed to die out. Their organs bear the name of Wellershaus untill the present day and will outlive the present generations.