Stephen Bicknell
Stephen Bicknell was born in London and was educated at Winchester College and St Chad’s College, Durham University. He joined the London firm of organ builders, N.P. Mander Ltd, in 1979, where he became head designer in 1990, having spent the years 1987 to 1990 with J.W. Walker & Sons. Having been closely involved with some particularly significant Mander instruments over the next three years, he left in 1993 to become a free-lance organ researcher, author and consultant.
Having joined BIOS (the British Instiute of Organ Studies) soon after its conception in 1976, he served on Council, acted as Membership Secretary, and for six years edited the quarterly BIOS Reporter, as well as contributing regular essays in the annual BIOS Journal. The fruits of his scholarly research into the organ featured in conferences around Europe and the USA and in three chapters in The Cambridge Companion to the Organ (CUP, 1998). His magnum opus is the highly-regarded The History of the English Organ (CUP, 1996), which rapidly became a standard reference work. It won the Nicholas Bessaraboff Prize for the ‘best 1996-7 book in English on a musical instrument’.
Among Stephen Bicknell’s significant projects for Mander and Walker and as an organ consultant / case designer were St Ignatius Loyola, New York, USA, Chelmsford Cathedral (two organs and cases), St John’s College Cambridge, Oriel College Oxford, Mill Hill School, Emmanuel Church Wylde Green, Birmingham and St Peter’s church, Ruthin.
He died at his London home on August 18th 2007.