John Compton Organ Company Ltd - the world's best cinema organ!

Some years ago I was given a VHS video (remember those?) and it was 20 minutes of pure fascination and here it is!

This promotional film was made by the John Compton Organ Ltd for the Ideal Home Exhibition in London in 1936. The film was silent and I am told that at the exhibition, it was accompanied by Quentin Maclean demonstrating one of the first Compton 'electrone' organs!

The film shows a cinema organ under construction at the factory of the John Compton Organ Company Ltd in North Acton, London and a whole variety of action can be seen from the drawing office to voicing of pipes, to engraving of stops to the testing of a melotone unit.

Since then sound has been put on the film in the form of different organists playing Compton cinema organs which include Reginald Porter-Brown and Dudley Savage.

The John Compton Organ Company started off in a small way in Nottinghamshire and by the 1920s had moved to London. The company stopped producing pipe organs in 1964 and sold this division to Rushworth and Dreaper but they did continue (albeit under different ownership a few years later) to produce electronic church organs up until 1970 when they were taken over by Makin Organs Ltd. The factory seen in this video was sadly bombed during world war two but was rebuilt after the war.

Whether you are passionate about organs or if you have no interest at all, there can be no denying that this is a good example of when Britain led the world in manufacturing!

Click here to see me play a Compton cinema pipe organ from the 1930s:

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Click here to see me play a Compton church pipe organ from the 1950s:

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Click here to see me play a Compton electronic church organ from the 1960s:

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