Belgian family of organ builders. The firm was founded in Geraardsbergen (Grammont) in 1867 by Francis Bernard Hooghuys (b Bruges, 15 Sept 1830; d Geraardsbergen, 30 Nov 1888) and his brother Simon Gerard Hooghuys (b Bruges, 21 March 1822; d Bruges, 1885). They built a number of organs in Belgian churches and also began to build barrel organs for use in all kinds of public places. The son of Francis, Louis François Hooghuys (b Bruges, 14 May 1856; d Geraardsbergen, 16 Nov 1924) expanded this aspect of the business, and from 1880 the firm concentrated exclusively on the production of street, dance and fairground organs. Large numbers were produced, and in 1895 they switched to the production of organs with Louis's own system of rapid-repetition pneumatic action operated by punched-cardboard music-books. Louis's sons Edouard Joseph, Charles François Edmond and Edgard George continued in the mechanical organ business well into the 1950s, although they ceased building new ones in the 1930s.
G. Moortgat: Oude orgels in Vlaanderen (Brussels, 1965)
E.V. Cockayne: The Fairground Organ (London, 1970/R)
S. Godfroid: ‘De familie Hooghuys te Geraardsbergen: Draaiorgelbouw in Vlaanderen’, Oosterlaamse Zanten, lviii/1 (1983)
S. Godfroid: Muziekinstrumentenbouw te Geraardsbergen van de 15de eeuw tot heden (Geraardsbergen, 1986)
J. Burg: ‘Die Arbeiten von Louis Benoit Hooghuys in Deutschland und ihr Bestand’, Ars organi, v (1993), 241–78
ARTHUR W.J.G. ORD-HUME