Stephen Bicknell

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Stephen Bicknell was born in London in 1957 and was educated at Winchester College and St. Chad's College, Durham University.

His career in pipe organ building started with N.P.Mander Ltd of London in 1979. From 1987-1990 he worked with J.W.Walker & Sons Ltd, returning to N.P.Mander Ltd as head designer in 1990. He has been directly involved with the design and construction of some of the most significant recent new instruments to be built in Britain. In 1993 he left full-time organ building to pursue a varied freelance career.

His interests in organ history have been expressed in his membership of the British Institute of Organ Studies (BIOS) since soon after its conception in 1976. He has served BIOS as Council Member, Membership Secretary, and as editor of the quarterly BIOS Reporter (1986-1992). He has contributed essays to the annual BIOS Journal and to other publications, and has read papers at conferences in Britain, France, Germany and the USA.

In 1996 Cambridge University Press published his The History of the English Organ, a work which has received wide critical acclaim and was the winner of the Nicholas Bessaraboff Prize for the best book in English on musical instrument published in the two year period 1996-7, awarded by the American Musical Instrument Society.

In 2005 Stephen Bicknell took a permanent post with the Association of Accounting Technicians in London.