TEMC Organist Historical Spotlight
Albert Jordan and Thomas James Crawford (1925-1946)

Present day chancel ceiling showing 1938 organ chambers.

Whereas TEMC’s third organist Ernest MacMillan took up his duties at the age of 27, leaving in his early 30s; Seaforth, Ontario native Albert Jordan came to the bench at 48, as an established figure on the London, Ontario music scene, where he lived (and commuted to from) until his death in 1932. Jordan had already founded and directed several musical organisations in southwestern Ontario, performed organ recitals in Pittsburgh and New York and represented Canada at both the Pan-American exhibition (Buffalo, 1901) and the Panama-Pacific exhibition (San Francisco, 1915). He was succeeded in 1933 by Thomas James Crawford, a Scot of precisely the same age who had come to Toronto in 1922 to become organist of St. Paul’s Anglican Church, but who had pursued a more international career in Glasgow, Leipzig, and most notably Westminster Abbey and St. Michael’s Chester Square in London England. He retired to Barrie, Ontario in 1946 where he served as organist to St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church until a tragic auto accident claimed him in 1955. In 1938 during Crawford’s time at TEMC (and perhaps at least partly under his influence) Lady Eaton directed that the organ be moved from its original east transept balcony position to dual chancel chambers, and the choir reconfigured into the classic Anglican divided “Westminster Chancel” – this is what we see today.

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