Pneumatic lever

Pneumatic lever (Fr.: levier pneumatique; Ger.: pneumatischer Hebel), a component of modern organ actions, invented in 1827 by Joseph Booth, organ builder of Wakefield, England, and developed by Charles Spackman Barker of Bath, later of Paris, ca. 1832. Its object was to ease organ touch. With the lever the keys no longer opened pallets, but opened valves of small, intermediary bellows. Unable to introduce the lever in England, Barker went to France, where it was promptly adopted by Aristide…