Gerald Sumner

A metallurgist by profession, working in the nuclear power industry, and an organ researcher by inclination, Gerald Sumner was a founder-member of BIOS and acted as organ adviser to the Diocese of Blackburn for thirty years.

His life-long interest in the organ owed much to the fact that after the second world war, even in quite small towns, in Lancashire there was often a wide variety of organs including many from famous British firms. There were also many interesting organs from other less well-known local firms and several from European firms including four from Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.

To write about the Cavaillé-Coll instruments found in the UK has been a long-term project of his, his research taking several decades. This work resulted in his substantial 2025 book (published by BIOS), Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, Organ Builder of Paris: The British Connections.