Green Plaque For Organ Builder

Founder of Compton Organs

An Ealing Civic Society green plaque commemorating the founder of the Compton organ - John Compton - will be unveiled by his granddaughter by adoption, Suzy Perkins, at his former home at 37 Audley Road London W5
3ES on Monday 20th May at 11am.

Compton built organs for cinemas, churches and even a few cathedrals. His factory was in Chase Road, Park Royal.

The John Compton Organ Company Limited is best known for the 270 cinema organs built during the 1920s and 30s. But the company was established in 1920 to build, repair and tune traditional church organs and continued to do so until its demise in 1964.

Notable examples are at Downside Abbey, Derby Cathedral and St Georges RC Cathedral, Southwark. Another important aspect of Compton’s success was the development of electronic organs. We are fortunate to have a 1947 Electrone still in remarkably good working order in the Church of the Ascension, Hanger Hill, Ealing, close to Compton’s former home which will be played by well-known organ virtuoso and Compton enthusiast Richard Hills at the unveiling celebrations on May 20th.

The organs were manufactured in a purpose-built factory in North Acton opened in 1930 to cope with the boom in demand for theatre organs. This one-storey building was bombed in October 1940 but rebuilt soon after with a two storey frontage which still stands in Chase Road in Park Royal, now occupied by a firm of fashion wholesalers. The versatile workforce was employed during WWII in building Mosquito planes. Compton himself spent part of the war in Italy as a prisoner of war, having been stranded there at the beginning of the war where he was able to serve the local community as an organist.

The company failed to survive long after its founder’s death in 1957 but this should not detract from its achievements over 40 years: it was the largest organ builder in the country employing 250 workers at its height.

John Compton has been described as an “inventive genius”: more patents were applied
for by his company than by any other organ builder.

The unveiling will be followed by talks on John Compton and his company, a short recital on the 1947 electronic Compton Organ and refreshments at the Church of the Ascension, Beaufort Road W5.

His most famous cinema organ is the 5 manual (keyboard) instrument at the Odeon Leicester Square where it rises onto the stage, with its multi-coloured illuminated console, for film premieres and special recitals.

A longer article about the John Compton Organ Company Limited can be found in the May 2012
edition of the Acton Historian, published by the Acton History Group. Please contact:
kelvinmeredith@ntlworld.com

Compton Organs in the London Borough of Ealing

Church of All Hallows, Greenford has the only Compton pipe organ in the Borough, a 2 manual, 5
rank instrument. It started its life in 1923 as a standard model Compton Kinestra in the Hippodrome,
Woolwich.
Church of the Ascension, Beaufort Road, W5 3EB: 2 manual 1947 Electrone 347, still in use in situ
Forum (opposite Ealing Town Hall, 1934): 3 manual 9 rank. It is now in the chapel of Wormwood
Scrubs Prison in good condition and played regularly.
The Lido (1928, previously the Kinema, West Ealing, demolished 2001): 2 manual, 5 rank now
believed to be in private hands in the London area.
Savoy, East Acton, (1931 demolished in 1996), 2 manual, presumably scrapped.
St Benedict’s Priory (now Ealing Abbey) 3 manual (1935), destroyed during the Blitz in 1940.
St Gabriel’s, North Acton, 2 manual Electrone 357 installed in the late 1960s.

9th May 2013