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AUSTIN, John Turnell,
President of Austin Organ Company,
History proves that the men who have
been successful in any line of endeavor
have been those whose success has been
the result of their own exertions—the
men of the initiative power, and courage
to carry their convictions above and
beyond the commonplace and accepted.
No man can be called a success who,
blindly and contentedly, and without
striking after better things, follows the
customs and dictates of the generation,
epoch, or school of thought which pre-
ceded his own, or in which he lives. Stag-
nation of effort and retrogression, the
arch enemies of civilization, follow as
surely as night the day the idle, satisfied
acceptance of his surrounding by man.
Leading every cause of Rome's downfall
was her satisfaction in her greatness, the
conviction that there were no greater
heights to which to strive. And Rome,
not occupied with the stern pursuit of
honor and fame, drifted calmly into the
pursuits which proved her undoing. The
history of Rome is that of every other
nation which has suffered her fate, from
the beginning of the world up to the
present day, and the history of every indi-
vidual. The possession of an ideal, inde-
fatigable energy, ambition, genius, these
are the qualities which make the leaders
of the industries and professions. Genius
is impotent without these to accompany
it.
John Turnell Austin, who is the
founder and executive head of one of
Hartford's important industries, owes his
success to no fortuitous circumstances.
His enviable position in the business
world and his success is the result of his
application and devotion of his genius
for his work in the field of effort which
he chose for his career. Mr. Austin was
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born in Poddington, England, on May 16,
1869, the son of Jonathan and Charlotte
(Turnell) Austin. The Austin family
were residents of Poddington for several
generations. His paternal grandfather,
John Austin, was a blacksmith and a
farmer, as was also his great-grandfather.
A taste for things mechanical has always
marked the Austin family. Jonathan Austin
was a farmer by vocation, but was
interested in the building of pipe organs.
This vocation he carried to practical ends,
building six organs for neighboring
churches. He died in 1913, at the age
of eighty-six years. His wife was the
daughter of Thomas Battams Turnell.
Mr. Austin was educated in the private
schools of the Episcopal Church of St.
Michael's and All Angel's in London,
where he completed his education at the
age of fifteen, and from that time until he
reached twenty years of age he lived on
his father's farm. The entire family were
music lovers, and he was reared in this
atmosphere at home and at school, as
vocal music formed an important part of
the curriculum and daily exercises of the
school which he attended. Watching his
father build pipe organs imbued young
Austin with a desire to do likewise, and
he was only fourteen years of age when
he began to build his first organ, doing
the whole laborious task by hand, using
only rough lumber which he had to dress
and work himself to meet the various re-
quirements. Every book on the subject
of pipe organs to which he could gain
access he eagerly devoured, beginning
with his father's collection.
In 1889, Mr. Austin came to America,
to seek his fortune, and going to Detroit.
Michigan, entered the employ of the Farrand
Votey Organ Company. The knowledge
and practice which he had gained
in an amateur way stood him in good
stead when he came actually to employ