Barker lever

The Barker lever is a pneumatic system which multiplies the force of a finger on the key of a tracker pipe organ. It employs the wind pressure of the organ to inflate small bellows called "pneumatics" to overcome the resistance of the pallets (valves) in the organ's wind-chest . This lever allowed for the development of larger, more powerful organs still responsive to the human hand. These larger organs first flourished in France, e.g., the organ produced by Cavaillé-Coll at St. Sulpice.

This "contrivance" was named after Charles Spackman Barker (1804-79), engineer and organ-builder. A similar lever was developed by David Hamilton in 1835, and there has been debate whether Barker stole the design. The rest of Barker's career was undistinguished.

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