Frank Morse Robb (abt. 1901)

Born about Feb 1901 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada [uncertain]

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Biography

FRANK MORSE 'Mors' ROBB

Morse Robb

Article by-Betty Nygaard King, Helmut Kallmann

Published Online--January 23, 2008

Last Edited--March 4, 2015

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/frank-morse-robb

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Frank Morse Robb, inventor, designer, business executive (born 28 January 1902 in Belleville, Ontario; died 5 August 1992 in Belleville).

Frank Morse Robb was one of the first inventors in the world to succeed in developing an electronic organ, the Robb Wave Organ, in 1927.

Robb, Frank Morse

Frank Robb was the inventor of the first electronic organ (artwork by Irma Coucill).

Frank Morse Robb, inventor, designer, business executive (born 28 January 1902 in Belleville, ON; died 5 August 1992 in Belleville).

Frank Morse Robb was one of the first inventors in the world to succeed in developing an electronic organ, the Robb Wave Organ, in 1927. However, attempts to produce the instrument commercially proved unsuccessful due to lack of financing, and fewer than two dozen were ever built.

Invention Background

After studying at McGill University from 1921 to 1924, Robb returned to his native Belleville and in 1926 began research on an electronic organ. His goal was to produce one for church use that would save space and require little maintenance.

The sound-producing mechanism of his trailblazing Robb Wave Organ involved a system of 12 shafts, one for each note in the chromatic scale. On each shaft were mounted sets of tone wheels, or discs. Each disc was edged in the shape of sound-waves photographed from a cathode ray oscillograph and corresponded to an organ stop. The shafts and discs rotated before tiny coils and magnets, which in turn translated the wave design into electric currents that were fed through a vacuum-tube amplifier into two loudspeakers. Different speeds of rotation produced different pitches. The organ's console had all the usual couplers of traditional pipe organs.

Patents and Production Attempts

In November 1927, a small trial instrument was demonstrated in Belleville and at the Toronto Daily Star's CFCA radio studio. Cellist Boris Hambourg put Robb in touch with the General Electric Company in Schenectady, NY, but no production arrangement was made. Robb filed the first patent application for a Sound Reproducing Instrument on 29 September 1927; he obtained the patents for Canada on 23 October 1928 and for the United States on 23 December 1930. In 1931, Robb resumed experimentation and signed an agreement to work with the organ builders Casavant Frères. However, the Depression caused the company to back out of the agreement the following spring.

Robb produced a five-octave one-manual instrument in 1932 and demonstrated a two-manual, 32-pedal note-wave organ in Belleville in April 1934. Soon afterward, Lady Flora Eaton, Edward Johnson, Alexander and Ernest MacMillan and Frederick Silvester visited Robb to hear the organ. The Robb Wave Organ Company was incorporated on 21 September 1934 and the first production model came on the market in 1936, but only 16 to 20 instruments were built. Silvester played on one at a Toronto Promenade Symphony Concert on 30 July 1936, and Lady Eaton arranged for Robb and the Montréal organist Warner Norman to give demonstrations of the instrument at Eaton's department stores in Toronto and Montréal.

In 1936, Robb also experimented with a touch-sensitive keyboard. Response from musicians and music critics was encouraging, but Robb was unable to obtain funding for further production and in 1938 he abandoned the project. The Robb Wave Organ was taken off the market in 1941; only 13 were ever sold. The American-built Hammond Organ, which used a similar tone wheel device, began production in 1935 and would go on to become the industry standard.

Surviving Robb Wave Organs

The prototype of the Robb Wave Organ and some parts are held in Ottawa at the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

The only known surviving commercial model was donated to the National Music Centre in Calgary.

Additional Work

Robb also applied his talent as an inventor to devices for the packing of guns during the Second World War. He became vice-president of his brother's packing company and won acclaim as a silversmith. He also wrote the novel Tan Ming (1955) under the pseudonym Lan Stormont.

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Morse Robb

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_Robb

Frank Morse Robb

Born:......28 January 1901 Belleville, Ontario, Canada

Died:........5 October 1992 (aged 91) Belleville, Ontario, Canada

Alma mater:...McGill University, Montreal

Occupation:...Inventor

Spouse(s):......Edleen Rose

Children

Skye Robb

Relatives:

William Doig Robb (Father)

Catharine Haggart Black (Mother)

Joseph Robb (Brother)

Wallace Havelock Robb (Brother)

Frank Morse Robb (January 28, 1902 – October 5, 1992) was a Canadian inventor and entrepreneur who resided in Belleville, Ontario.

He is best known for his invention of the first electronic tone wheel organ, the Robb Wave Organ, however he has several patents to his name, in areas such as television, fuel draught carburetors, and for devices such as an 'Electronic Viewscope for the Blind'.

Robb's organ, when it was introduced in 1927, was the first electronic instrument which could mimic an acoustic organ, and predated the more well known Hammond organ, which was brought to market in 1934.

Early Life

Morse Robb, the son of William Doig Robb and Catherine Haggart Black, was born in Belleville, Ontario in 1901. Robb was the youngest of his siblings, among Joseph Robb, founder of Canadian company Robco Inc, and Wallace Havelock Robb, poet and founder of the bird sanctuary "Abbey Dawn".

William and Catharine were both Quebec-born. William's father had emigrated from Scotland to help build the Grand Trunk Railway. William joined the GTR in 1871 and moved from city to city before settling into Belleville. He became vice president of the GTR before becoming vice-president of the Canadian National Railways and spearheading the CNR Radio project.

Morse left Belleville to attend school at McGill University, studying Arts, Science, and Commerce. He also studied music under Frederick H. Blair, the organist of the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul in Montreal. Upon his return to Belleville in 1926, he began serious work on his electronic organ design, of which he had a working prototype of by November 1927.

Robb married Edleen Rose in 1930, and they had a son, Skye. In 1934, he released a two-manual, 32 pedal Robb Wave Organ to the public. Unfortunately due to the Depression, Robb was unable to find adequate funding to continue with his organ project, and in 1938 the Robb Wave Organ Company closed its doors. After his work on the organ, Robb turned to other pursuits, including designing and making hand-wrought sterling silver dishes. Once WWII came around, Robb found himself employed by his brother's firm Joseph Robb Company, where he developed and oversaw the manufacture of an improved lanyard ring for the recuperative chambers of large guns. He continued on with the company after the war, and eventually became the General Manager of the Anchor Packing Company Division.

By the time he withdrew from the business world in 1957 he was a Senior Vice-President of the parent company. After his retirement from industry, Robb continued work on his inventions, obtaining patents in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom for his Electronic Viewscope for the Blind, among other inventions. The Viewscope is a headworn device that fits over the forehead, and converts light into tactile impulses. It was patented on November 28, 1972 in the United States, under patent number 3,704,378.

Robb is also a published author, releasing his first and only novel, "Tan Ming", in 1955 under the pen name Lan Stormont.

He has also published several short stories under the name Michael Shane.

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For a look at the Wave Organ and additional story, follow this link

http://120years.net/robb-wave-organ-morse-robb-canada-1927/

REFERENCES

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/frank-morse-robb-emc

http://collections.nmc.ca/people/442/frank-morse-

robb;jsessionid=8377B815F75AAEABF03CF1C5BED7F226

https://www.modernmusicology.com/hammond-1934-to-present/

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/frederick-h-blair-emc

https://www.robco.com/en/about/company-profile/100-year-history

https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nb2007016763

https://viaf.org/viaf/16753691

Sources

• "Ontario Births, 1869-1912," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FMXQ-2X2 : 9 August 2017), Frank Morse Robb, 28 Jan 1902; citing Birth, Belleville, Hastings, Ontario, Canada, citing Archives of Ontario, Toronto; FHL microfilm 2,131,250.
• "Canada Births and Baptisms, 1661-1959", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F2X9-BX1 : 16 December 2019), Frank Morse Robb, 1902.
• "Recensement du Canada de 1911," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVBW-L3ZS : 16 March 2018), Mors Robb in the household of W D Robb, 1911; citing Census, Jacques-Cartier Sub-Districts 1-15, Quebec, Canada, Library and Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario; FHL microfilm 2,418,549.
• "Recensement du Canada de 1911," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVBW-VY53 : 16 March 2018), Mors Robb in the household of Wallis Robb, 1911; citing Census, Hochelaga Sub-Districts 31-51, Quebec, Canada, Library and Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario; FHL microfilm 2,418,549.
• "Vermont, St. Albans Canadian Border Crossings, 1895-1954," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK3R-JF4X : 16 August 2019), Frank Morse Robb, 1924-1952; citing M1463, Soundex Index to Canadian Border Entries through the St. Albans, Vermont, District, 1895-1924, 76, NARA microfilm publications M1461, M1463, M1464, and M1465 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, publication year); FHL microfilm 1,570,789.
• "Find A Grave Index," database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6ZWM-1PGJ : 10 September 2021), Frank Morse Robb, ; Burial, Belleville, Hastings, Ontario, Canada, Belleville Cemetery; citing record ID 221256958, Find a Grave, http://www.findagrave.com.