George Orton, a wheelwright and coachbuilder by trade, was born in 1843 at Measham, Leicestershire. Charles Spooner, a wood carver, was born in Burton-on-Trent in 1871. George Orton’s first premises in Burton-on-Trent were said to have been at the bottom of Bearwood Hill, where he started building Gipsy and other wagons, and in 1875 he established the ‘Lion Carriage Works’. It has been recorded that his first commission from a travelling showman was around 1883/4 and subsequent work of this type mainly involved the construction of living wagons that were used as dwellings and as part of the highly decorated fairground show-fronts of the day.
One of Orton’s suppliers was a young man named Charles Spooner, who set up his own business in 1892 having been apprenticed to Walter Gifford Hilton, a wood carver of Victoria Street, Burton. Spooner’s father had been the landlord of Burton’s Old Swan Hotel and it was in the hotel yard that Charles set up shop, hence the name ‘Swan Works’.
The two firms worked together from 1894, but although they were often referred to collectively as Orton & Spooner they did not officially amalgamate until 1925, when a company was formed called George Orton, Sons & Spooner Ltd.