George Sherburn Hutchings

George Sherburn Hutchings (born Salem, Massachusetts, 9 December 1835; died Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1 June 1913) was an American organ builder who built up one of the most active firms in New England at the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth century. His career illustrates how a trade in carpentry could lead to the manufacture of large-scale instruments.

Hutchings began as a carpenter and, in 1857, joined the Boston firm of Hook as a case maker, a position that soon led to his running the department. After serving two years in the Union Army, he was appointed superintendent of the factory on his return. In 1869 he founded, with former colleagues from Hook, the J. H. Willcox Co., named after its principal financier, a distinguished organist. In 1872 the company was renamed Hutchings, Plaisted & Co., and its first major commission was a large organ for the Old South Church in Boston, in 1876. After Plaisted's departure in 1883, he carried on under his own name.

He is described as a shrewd businessman and a skilled mechanic, and a promoter of the Romantic tendency in organ building. In 1901 he acquired the organ-building interests of Edwin Scott Votey, and the firm was reorganised as the Hutchings-Votey Organ Co. Business difficulties then brought about a gradual decline, and the company eventually went bankrupt in 1919.