(b ?Germany, c1680; bur. Soho, London, 31 May 1751). English organ builder. Sumner claimed he was born in Leopoldsburg (?near Wettin) in Germany. He is often referred to as Father Smith’s son-in-law, though soon after Smith’s death in 1708 he married Helen Jennings (possibly his second wife). On Smith’s death he was instructed to complete the new organ at Trinity College, Cambridge, and he also succeeded Smith as organ maker to the royal household. It appears that he had associations with the two Abraham Jordans, father and son, reputedly collaborating with them on their instrument at St Magnus’s, London Bridge, in 1712, and being assisted by them in building the organ at Westminster Abbey in 1727. His organs include those at the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, London (1710); the Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace (c1710); Exeter Cathedral (1713; a rebuilding of the Loosemore organ with new soundboards, action and bellows); St Mary Whitechapel, London (1715; also attributed to Renatus Harris); St Mary Abbots, Kensington (c1716; also attributed to Jordan); St Mary the Virgin, Finedon, Northamptonshire (c1717; also attributed to Gerard Smith); St Martin-in-the-Fields, London (1726; the gift of King George I; it was removed in 1799 to Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, where parts remain); Westminster Abbey (1730; for the coronation of George II); and Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey (1737; temporary organ). Several other instruments have been attributed to Shrider on doubtful evidence: that at St Alkmund’s, Whitchurch, Shropshire, is now known to have been built by Marc-Antoine Dallam. Shrider’s son Christopher (d London, 16 Oct 1763) succeeded his father as organ maker to the king.
BicknellH
A. Freeman: ‘The Organs … of St Martin-in-the-Fields’,The Organ, i (1921–2), 1–19
A. Freeman: ‘Records of British Organ Builders’, MO, xviii (1924–5), 399, 508–9, 616
W.L. Sumner: The Organ: its Evolution, Principles of Construction and Use (London, 4/1973/R), 167
GUY OLDHAM/STEPHEN BICKNELL