19/06/2026
Did you know.... Victorian entrepreneurs, fairground ride pioneers and busness collaborators George Orton and Charles Spooner are buried alongside each other in Stapenhill Cemetery?
There is a family group of three graves. Each one is topped with a ledger stone. The grave of George Orton and his wife Maria, who died in 1914 and 1912 respectively, is topped with a red-coloured ledger stone. Buried in the grave alongside them is their youngest daughter, Annie Orton (who designed the Art Deco interiors of the Ritz Cinema on Guild Street). She died in 1965. Behind Annie's grave is the grave of Charles Spooner (who died in 1939) and his second wife Rose Orton (eldest daughter of George and Maria) who died in 1959. With them is one of their daughters, Elizabeth (Betty).
I would like to thank the East Staffordshire Borough Council cemetery maintenance team who recently cut back brambles that had grown over the Spooner grave making it impossible to see, as shown on the picture below.
Although fairground and steam engine enthusiasts call them "Orton & Spooner" they maintained separate businesses but were regular collaborators on show fronts, wagons and fairground rides. That is, until a year after the death of George Orton when the company George Orton, Sons and Spooner was legally and formally established uniting the two businesses. It existed until 1977.
However, George and Charles DID form another company, along with George's two sons Tom and Charles in 1913. It was The Burton Picturedrome Company, formed to convert a former roller skating rink in Curzon Street into a permanent cinema. They later demolished and rebuilt it as the New Picturedrome after George's death. They also acquired the Derby Turn Picture Palace and refurbished and renamed it as The Regent. Their masterpiece in cinema work was when they acquired the Burton Opera House on the corner of Guild Street and George Street. They demolished it all, except the back wall on the opposite side from Guild Street, and rebuilt it as the magnificent Ritz Cinema that opened to the public in 1935. This is the only one of their three cinemas still standing and thankfully protected by Listed building status.
