{{Short description|Welsh organ builder and organist}} {{Use British English|date=July 2016}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}} '''Len Rawle''' {{Postnom|country=GB|MBE}} (4 January 1938 – 14 November 2023) was a Welsh organ builder and organist.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Other News |url=https://www.theatreorganclub.co.uk/pages/other-news |access-date=2024-04-08 |website=Theatre Organ Club |language=en}}</ref> A London College of Music graduate, he was particularly noted for his restoration of Wurlitzer theatre organs, such as at Harrow, Tooting and Woking.<ref name="co">{{cite web |title=Len Rawle MBE |url=http://www.cinema-organs.org.uk/artists/rawle.html |accessdate=3 September 2014 |publisher=Cinema-organs.org.uk}}</ref><ref name="MackenzieStone1974">{{cite book |last1=Mackenzie |first1=Sir Compton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=juTjAAAAMAAJ |title=Gramophone |last2=Stone |first2=Christopher |publisher=General Gramophone Publications Ltd. |year=1974 |page=123}}</ref>
== Early life == Leonard George Rawle was born in Tonypandy, South Wales to Thomas Leslie (Les) Rawle, a grocery store manager, and Edith, a pianist and singer.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Len Rawle MBE – The Cinema Organ Society |url=https://www.cinema-organs.org.uk/artists/len-rawle-mbe/ |access-date=2024-04-08 |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2022-07-24 |title=LEN RAWLE – ORGANIST SUPREME {{!}} Stories Of London |url=https://stories-of-london.org/len-1/ |access-date=2024-04-08 |language=en-US}}</ref> Rawle learned the piano at the age of four. He also played the recorder and violin at school.<ref name=":2" /> In 1945, Rawle took his first piano music examinations at the London College of Music in Cardiff, before setting his sights on the organ after initially hearing Sandy MacPherson playing the organ at the Methodist Central Hall, Tonypandy.<ref name=":2" />
In 1948, the family moved to South Ruislip. Rawle attended Lady Banks Junior School before going to the Bourne Secondary School. He continued to have music lessons from Martin David at the Guildhall School of Music, and participated in local concerts and festivals, such as at the Ealing Music Festival, judged by Antony Hopkins. Upon reaching piano grade 8, Rawle was then eligible to study organ playing. He practised the organ at St Pauls Church in Ruislip Manor.<ref name=":2" />
In 1959, his parents installed the UK's first residence organ in the purpose built family home, named Wurlitzer Lodge, on Doncaster Drive in Northolt.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=LEN RAWLE – WURLITZER LODGE {{!}} Stories Of London |url=https://stories-of-london.org/len-7/ |access-date=2024-04-08 |language=en-US}}</ref> The installation of the Wurlitzer organ, which originated from the Granada Theatre, Wandsworth, was complete on 30 October 1960, when an opening concert took place.<ref name=":3" />
Rawle's father, Les, was responsible for tuning and maintaining the Christie Organ in the Regal, Edmonton.<ref name=":3" /> When the Regal closed, the management offered Les the organ, which in turn was donated to the American Theatre Organ Society and installed in the Memorial Hall, Barry, South Wales;<ref name=":3" /> Rawle often played there.<ref>{{cite web |date=2 March 2004 |title=Young organist's skills hit right note |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-113837207.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140921204216/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-113837207.html |archive-date=21 September 2014 |accessdate=3 September 2014 |publisher=South Wales Echo |via=HighBeam Research}}</ref>
== Career == After school, Rawle attended the Acton Technical College. However, he did not complete his studies and, instead, pursued a career in insurance at the London and Lancashire Insurance Company. He worked there for two years, from 1952, before being called up for National Service and posted to Aldershot Garrison in Hampshire in 1954 for his basic training. At Aldershot, Rawle focused on clerical and musical duties, including playing at the battalion churches and passing out parades. He would also play, on a voluntary basis, the Wurlitzer Organ at the Ritz Aldershot on a Saturday morning, for the Children's Matinee, and the Compton organ at the Empire Cinema on a Sunday.<ref name=":2" />
After demobilisation, having returned to his work at the London and Lancashire Insurance Company, Rawle played at the Saturday Children's Matinee at the Ritz, Richmond, at the Commodore Cinema, Hammersmith and the Regal Kingston.<ref name=":2" />
Rawle was on the first radio programme of ''The Organist Entertains'', broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on 11 June 1969.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=BBC Radio 2 - The Organist Entertains, Thanks For The Memory |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09smflf |access-date=2024-04-08 |website=BBC |language=en-GB}}</ref> In 1973, he appeared in the TV documentary film ''Metro-Land'', written and narrated by Sir John Betjeman. Rawle performed "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and "The Varsity Drag", the latter a song which would have been popular when Betjeman was a young man.<ref name=":1" />
In 1971, Rawle attended the Annual Music Trade Fair in London, and took an interest in the Yamaha stand, where he was approached by a representative of Kemble Pianos.<ref>{{Cite web |title=LEN RAWLE – THE YAMAHA STORY – 1 {{!}} Stories Of London |url=https://stories-of-london.org/len-15/ |access-date=2024-04-08 |language=en-US}}</ref> He was offered the position of Musical Director of Kemble (Organ Sales), a role he would continue in until his retirement.<ref>{{Cite web |title=LEN RAWLE – THE YAMAHA STORY – 2 {{!}} Stories Of London |url=https://stories-of-london.org/len-16/ |access-date=2024-04-08 |language=en-US}}</ref>
Rawle was responsible for establishing the Yamaha organ dealer network and Yamaha Music Schools in the UK. He gave numerous concerts and workshops in the US, Australia and Europe.<ref name="co" /> In May 2001, he played on "Western New York's mightiest Wurlitzer theater pipe organ" in Buffalo, New York.<ref>{{cite web |date=8 May 2001 |title=Reporter's Notebook |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-22364339.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140921204210/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-22364339.html |archive-date=21 September 2014 |accessdate=3 September 2014 |publisher=Buffalo News |via=HighBeam Research}}</ref>
Rawle was particularly noted for his restoration of Wurlitzer theatre organs.<ref name="co" /><ref name="MackenzieStone1974" /> He maintained the Wurlitzer organ in Woking, and previously maintained several other Wurlitzer organs, such as those at the Gaumont State Cinema, Kilburn, and the former organ of the Empire, Leicester Square, which he later installed in his Chorleywood home.<ref name=":4">{{cite web |title=History |url=https://empirewurlitzer.co.uk/history/#newhome |website=Empire Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ |publisher=Empire Wurlitzer |access-date=10 April 2023}}</ref>
Rawle was involved in a £40,000 project to restore the Granada Tooting Wurlitzer organ, described as "one of the most significant restoration projects in the UK". In April 2007, Rawle, along with Doreen Chadwick and Kevin Morgan, gave the reopening concert to an audience of over one thousand. However, some months later, the organ suffered a flood, rendering it inoperable.<ref>{{cite web |title=Len Rawle |url=http://www.rochford-compton.com/len_rawle.html |accessdate=3 September 2014 |publisher=Rochford-compton.com}}</ref>
Rawle was a member of both the Theatre Organ Club and the Cinema Organ Society. Rawle and his father founded the London and South of England Chapter of The American Theatre Organ Society.<ref>{{Cite web |title=LEN RAWLE – FOUNDING THE UK CHAPTER OF THE ATOS {{!}} Stories Of London |url=https://stories-of-london.org/len-8/ |access-date=2024-04-08 |language=en-US}}</ref>
== Personal life and death == Rawle married Judith Anne Rodgers (born 1939) on 12 September 1964, in Sevenoaks. The couple had three children, Elizabeth, Richard and Georgina.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-02-28 |title=LEN RAWLE – MARRIAGE & LIFE AT TONAWANDA {{!}} Stories Of London |url=https://stories-of-london.org/len-13/ |access-date=2024-04-08 |language=en-US}}</ref> The family settled in Berry Lane, Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, where Rawle built his own house, Tonawanda, and installed a 4-manual, 20-rank Wurlitzer organ, previously at the Empire, Leicester Square.<ref name=":0" /> (Tonawanda is a town in New York where all of the Wurlitzer organs were produced). The organ was officially opened in June 1968 by Gerald Shaw.<ref name=":0" /> However, the instrument was sold to a fellow enthusiast in 2015 to be restored and installed in a new purpose-built location in Suffolk.<ref name=":4" />
As a child, Rawle enjoyed visiting Northolt Airport to watch and study the aeroplanes; he would construct balsa wood model aeroplane kits. In the 1980s, Rawle took flying lessons with the London School of Flying at Elstree, obtaining his licence shortly afterwards.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-08-18 |title=LEN RAWLE – UP, UP AND AWAY INTO THE WIDE BLUE YONDER {{!}} Stories Of London |url=https://stories-of-london.org/len-14/ |access-date=2024-04-08 |language=en-US}}</ref> For a time, he owned a Cessna plane.
Rawle was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2012.<ref name=":1" />
Rawle died on 14 November 2023, aged 85.<ref name=":0" />
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.britishpathe.com/video/wurlitzer-cinema-organ-installed-in-private-house British Pathé newsreel about Rawle, 1960]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Rawle, Len}} Category:Welsh organists Category:British male organists Category:1938 births Category:2023 deaths Category:People from Tonypandy Category:British pipe organ builders Category:Members of the Order of the British Empire Category:21st-century British organists Category:21st-century Welsh male musicians