He is well known as the designer of the Wanamaker Organ but was also an illustrator, architect and writer.
He was born in Moray in the town of Elgin. He was born in 1838 and lived to be 87.
He was well known for: Fiction Illustration Music
Audsleys interest in the pipe organ was largely sparked by early experiences hearing W. T. Best at St. Georges Hall, Liverpool. Audsley wrote numerous magazine articles on the organ, and as early as the 1880s was envisioning huge instruments with numerous divisions each under separate expression, in imitation of the symphony orchestra. The Los Angeles Art Organ Co. (successors to the Murray M. Harris Organ Company) had Audsley design the worlds largest organ they were building for the St. Louis Exposition of 1904, and included him on the paid staff. This instrument was produced just as his book on The Art of Organ-Building was being published This great pipe organ eventually was purchased for the John Wanamaker Store in Philadelphia, PA, where it is today known as the Wanamaker Organ. In 1905, Audsley published the monumental two-volume The Art of Organ Building as an attempt to position himself as the pre-eminent organ designer in the US. The lavish work includes numerous superb drawings done by Audsley and is still consulted today although organ fashions have evolved in many directions in the ever-fluid, passion-driven world of music. He was an early advocate of console standardization and radiating concave pedal keyboards to accommodate the natural movement of human legs. Unfortunately, his plan to develop the profession of organ architect as a consultant to work in consultation with major builders in achieving a high-art product was short-lived. Few commissions for pipe organs or buildings came his way, and few organs were built to high-art standards. In subsequent years, he wrote several works, one of which was published posthumously, that were essentially shortened forms of his 1905 organ building book, updated to comment on controversies of the day and the rapid advances in applying electro-pneumatic actions and playing aids to the craft. The National Association of Organists (now defunct) bestowed an Audsley medal in his honor.
Audsley was dogmatic by nature and generally unwilling to compromise his ideals. In architecture he followed the teachings of John Ruskin and rejected sham architecture such as miserable inch-thick plaster imitating stone vaulting and iron columns finished to look like marble. Audsley strongly insisted on quality materials both in buildings and pipe organs. He made an important distinction in pipe-organ tone from what is musical and what is mere musical noise. He was in the vanguard of the symphonic-organ music but also believed in fully developed principal choruses with real mixtures. He was very much his own worst critic and attention to detail is evident in every aspect of his works. He was dedicated to mid-19th century forms of architecture and rejected the Beaux Artsand subsequent movements, at perhaps much personal cost. Audsleys overarching theory of organ design has been considered either eccentric or particular to its period, and was never adopted fully by any builder. It would be wrong, however, to say that many aspects of his writing were not influential. His urging of multiple divisions under expression proved particularly prophetic, and there is much of value in his books on his discussions of organ stops, their natures, their materials, and the relative merits of the various forms of construction possible. As an example of his eccentricity, Audsley insisted that sound was not a wave in a medium, but some kind of particle phenomenon, rejecting all the science to the contrary. It has been said that Audsley was very right when he was right, but very wrong when he was wrong. In all his achievements, however, there is excellence in execution, deep thought, profound craftsmanship and high artistry. Art is never static, and all his achievements reward patient study.