Hollister, Thomas

Dates Active in Dublin:

1703?–c. 1720

Business Type:

Details:

Founder of the Hollister dynasty of organ and keyboard builders in Dublin, although his father (or brother?) Robert Hollister was appointed organist at St John's Church, Fishamble Street, in 1688 (Boydell, Calendar).

Thomas Hollister was assistant organist at St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork from 1695 to 1703 with the added duty to 'tune and keep clean the organ'.

He built an organ in St Werburgh's Church, Dublin, in 1719 which however was deemed unsatisfactory when examined the following year by Daniel and Ralph Rosengrave, Robert Woffington and John Baptiste Cuvillie.

Flood states that in the 1720s, Thomas Hollister was a noted harpsichord maker as well as organ builder ('Harpsichord and Pianoforte Makers').

Select Product/Work List:

Built

Organ: St Werburgh's Church, 1719

Maintained

Organ: St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, 1695–1703

Source(s):

Flood, W.H. Grattan, 'Dublin Harpsichord and Pianoforte Makers of the Eighteenth Century', The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 5th ser., 39.2 (1909), 137–45 (p. 139)

Flood, W.H. Grattan, 'Irish Organ-Builders from the Eighth to the Close of the Eighteenth Century', The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 5th ser., 40.3 (30 September 1910), 229–34 (p. 232)

Boydell, Brian, 'Hollister', in The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, ed. by Stanley Sadie, 3 vols (London: Macmillan Press Limited, 1984), II, p. 228

Boydell, Brian, A Dublin Musical Calendar 1700–1760 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1988), pp. 37–38, 260

Boydell, Barra, 'St Michan's Church, Dublin: the Installation of the Organ in 1725 and the Duties of the Organist', Journal of the British Institute of Organ Studies, 19 (1995), 74–96 (p. 89)