John Compton (1876–1957), born in Newton Burgoland, Leicestershire was a pipe organ builder. His business based in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...

and London flourished between 1902 and 1965.

Life

John Compton was educated at

King Edward's School, Birmingham King Edward's School (KES) is an independent day school for boys in the British public school tradition, located in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Founded by King Edward VI in 1552, it is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Bir ...

and then studied as an apprentice with Halmshaw & Sons in Birmingham. In 1898 he joined Brindley and Foster in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire a ...

.Douglas Earl Bush, Richard Kassel, ''The organ: an encyclopedia''. Routledge, 2006, p.122. Then he joined Charles Lloyd in Nottingham. He set up the business Musson & Compton in 1902 in

with James Frederick Musson. The partnership dissolved in 1904. In 1919, the business moved to workshops at Turnham Green Terrace, Chiswick, London, which had been vacated by August Gern. He occupied a new factory at Chase Road, Park Royal, North Acton, London in 1930. Compton worked primarily on electric-action pipe organs and

electronic organ An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since developed ...

s. Compton's first electronic instrument was the Melotone (a solo voice added to theatre organs); next came the Theatrone. The Electrone, an

electrostatic Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies electric charges at rest ( static electricity). Since classical times, it has been known that some materials, such as amber, attract lightweight particles after rubbing. The Greek word for amb ...

tonewheel A tonewheel or tone wheel is a simple electromechanical apparatus used for generating electric musical notes in electromechanical organ instruments such as the Hammond Organ and in telephony to generate audible signals such as Ringing tone. ...

instrument introduced in 1938, evolved out of research by Leslie Bourn, an association begun in the 1920s. Throughout his organ-building career, John Compton was assisted by the very capable and inventive James Isaac Taylor, who spent his entire working life with the Compton firm prior to his death in 1958. John Compton also befriended a wealthy industrialist by the name of Albert Henry Midgley; one of the founders of C A Vandervell, which was later to become CAV-Lucas Ltd; a major supplier of electrical equipment to the motor industry. Midgley was one of the most prolific inventors of his age, with over 900 inventions to his name and following a rift with C A V-Lucas,he was appointed Technical Director of the Compton firm soon after, in 1925. Midgley's genius in electrical engineering and mass-production techniques, helped the Compton firm to achieve an extraordinary level of productivity. The company were awarded many original patents in things ranging from simple organ mechanisms to the most complex, state of the art electronic and electrical inventions. Many of those patents show that Midgley was cited as the inventor. On 13 June 1940, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Compton was arrested while holidaying on the island of Capri, in Italy. He was interned as an enemy alien but spent much of his time restoring pipe organs, before being permitted to return to England. Compton died in 1957, and the business continued under the direction of his right-hand man, James I Taylor. Taylor died the year after in 1958, and the business was wound up around 1965. The pipe organ department was sold to

Rushworth and Dreaper Rushworth and Dreaper was a firm of organ builders, and later general instrument suppliers associated with Paul McCartney based in Liverpool. The manufacturer was founded in 1828 by William Rushworth, operating until 2002. Upon its liquidation, ...

; the electronic department became Makin Organs.

Compton organs

Compton cinema organs, built by the John Compton Organ Company of Acton, were the most prevalent of

theatre organ A theatre organ (also known as a theater organ, or, especially in the United Kingdom, a cinema organ) is a type of pipe organ developed to accompany silent films, from the 1900s to the 1920s. Theatre organs have horseshoe-shaped arrangements ...

s in the UK; 261 were installed in cinemas and theatres in the British Isles. Comptons made many fine church and concert organs as well. Their cinema organs employed the latest technology and engineering and many are still in existence today. One of the most notable is the large 5 manual example at the Odeon Cinema Leicester Square in central London.

List of new organs

All Souls' Church, Radford All or ALL may refer to: Language * All, an indefinite pronoun in English * All, one of the English determiners * Allar language (ISO 639-3 code) * Allative case (abbreviated ALL) Music * All (band), an American punk rock band * ''All'' (All al ...

1903 * Emmanuel Church, Nottingham 1903 * United Methodist Free Church, Stapleford 1903 * Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Hucknall 1903 *Emmanuel Church, New Park St, Leicester 1905 *

St Wilfrid's Church, Cantley St Wilfrid's Cantley is a Grade II* listed church in Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England, and serves as the parish church for the areas of Cantley, Bessacarr and Branton. It is a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic church within the Church of Engl ...

1905 * Selby Abbey 1906 *St. Peter's School Chapel,

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

1907 *Launceston Wesleyan Church 1909 *Holdenhurst Road Methodist Church, Bournemouth 1909 *Westbourne Wesleyan Church, Bournemouth 1910 *

Shakespeare Street Wesleyan Reform Chapel Shakespeare Street Wesleyan Reform Chapel is a former Wesleyan Reform church on Shakespeare Street in Nottingham, England. It is a Grade II listed building. It was converted in 1953 to a synagogue and is now a university hall. History The churc ...

, Nottingham 1914 *Stowmarket Parish Church, 1922 *St Swithun's Church, Cheswardine, Shropshire, 1922 memorial for those killed in the 1914-1918 war * Shepherd's Bush Pavilion 1923
Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre 1929
*

Elite Picture Theatre, Nottingham The Elite Picture Theatre, Nottingham was a cinema open from 1921 to 1977 in Nottingham. History The cinema was designed by the firm of Adamson & Kinns of London in the Beaux-Arts style, with 250 tons of steel frame, concrete floors and expensiv ...

1930 *Chapel Cranleigh School Surrey 1930. Eight Ranks, Three manuals. Lasted until 1978. Verifiable on NPOR site *

Church of St Osmund, Parkstone St Dunstan of Canterbury Orthodox Church is an Antiochian Orthodox church in Parkstone, Poole, Dorset. It is the parish church for Bournemouth and Poole within the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of The British Isles and Ireland. A Grade II* lis ...

1931 *

Downside Abbey Downside Abbey is a Benedictine monastery in England and the senior community of the English Benedictine Congregation. Until 2019, the community had close links with Downside School, for the education of children aged eleven to eighteen. Both ...

1931 *St. Mary Magdelene's Church, Paddington 1932 *Church of St Edmund the King and Martyr, Lombard Street, London 1932 * BBC Concert Hall Broadcasting House, London 1932 * Broadway Theatre, Catford, 1932:- (contemporaneously, a music hall) * Plaza Cinema, Stockport 1932 *

St Luke's Church, Chelsea The Parish Church of St Luke, Chelsea, is an Anglican church, on Sydney Street, Chelsea, London SW3, just off the King's Road. Ecclesiastically it is in the Deanery of Chelsea, part of the Diocese of London. It was designed by James Savage in 1 ...

1932 *Odeon Cinema,

Weston-super-Mare Weston-super-Mare, also known simply as Weston, is a seaside town in North Somerset, England. It lies by the Bristol Channel south-west of Bristol between Worlebury Hill and Bleadon Hill. It includes the suburbs of Mead Vale, Milton, Oldmix ...

1935 *St. Benedict's Priory, Ealing 1935 *East Church of St Nicholas, Aberdeen 1936
Southampton Guildhall 1936Regent Street Cinema, London 1936
* Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square 1937 *Emmanuel United Reformed Church, Worthing 1937 (formerly St Columba's Presbyterian Church) * Wolverhampton Civic Hall 1938 *Methodist Mission, Great Yarmouth 1938 * St John's Cathedral, Salford 1938 * Church House, Westminster 1939 *

Christchurch Priory Christchurch Priory is an ecclesiastical parish and former priory church in Christchurch in the English county of Dorset (formerly in Hampshire). It is one of the longest parish churches in the country and is as large as many of the Church of E ...

1951 * St Eugene's Cathedral, Derry 1956 * St Bride's Church London 1957 * St George's Cathedral, Southwark 1958 * St Alban Golders Green, London * Westover (now ABC) Cinema, Bournemouth c.1937 * Astoria Cinema, Pokesdown c.1930s (the last two organs are unconfirmed, but their existence is attested to by local documentary sources; the Westover instrument is now in private hands at Ryde on the Isle of Wight; the Astoria instrument no longer exist) * Southern Grammar School for Boys, Portsmouth c. 1957 * Portsmouth Guildhall 1959 * St.Alban's Holborn 1961

Rebuilds and restorations

* Holy Trinity Church, Hull 1938 * Holy Trinity Church, Exmouth 1953 *St Catherine, Bearwood, Wokingham, Berkshire. 1952 (NPOR A00449) *Tower Hill Methodist Church, Hessle 2001 (Formerly at Oxted United Reformed Church, Surrey)

References

Other sources

Ivor Buckingham, ''The Compton List: dedicated to the John Compton Organ Company and its products''
- includes details on Theatrones and Electrones

External links

Electrokinetica, ''Introducing the Compton Electrone''
Includes a thorough technical description. Accessed 29 Oct 2009. *. Includes sound of organ. Accessed 29 Oct 2009. *. Accessed 29 March 2010. *. Accessed 29 March 2010. *. Accessed 29 March 2010. {{DEFAULTSORT:Compton, John British pipe organ builders Inventors of musical instruments People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham 1876 births 1957 deaths People from Nottingham English musical instrument makers