Crystalate Manufacturing Company

Last updated

Crystalate Manufacturing Company
IndustryManufacturing
Founded2 August 1901
HeadquartersLondon
Area served
United Kingdom
Productssports equipment

Crystalate Manufacturing Company Ltd. was a British plastics and later electronic components manufacturing company that operated in one form or another from August 1901 through August 1990. It is best known for its gramophone records (under many record labels) made of moulded Crystalate plastic.

The company was founded 2 August 1901, [1] to make billiard balls and other items as well as gramophone records, [1] using a plastic formulation branded Crystalate, licensed from its American patent holder. [1] The company claimed in advertisements to be the first to press disk records in the UK, a claim neither proven nor disproven, [1] and over time focused more on the music market, producing gramophone record production matrices for more than 20 other companies by 1906, [1] though not operating a record label itself until the 1920s.

After merging with Sound Recording Co. Ltd. (exactly how and when remain unclear), [1] Crystalate Manufacturing became, in 1920, the third company (and the second British one) to operate the Imperial label, [1] and by the mid-1920s had four distribution depots in England and one each in Scotland and Ireland. [1] On 30 January 1928, the company re-incorporated in Golden Green, Kent, [1] as Crystalate Gramophone Record Manufacturing Co. Ltd. [1] 1928 also saw Crystalate taking over West Hampstead Town Hall at 165 Broadhurst Gardens in London, and moving its recording studio there. [2] It subsequently established affiliates in France and Germany, set up a new headquarters, Crystalate House, in London, [1] and bought a one-third interest in the American Record Corporation conglomerate in 1929. [1] Brands pressed by Crystalate included Crown and Rex Records. [3]

The company saw financial difficulties, like so many others, throughout the Great Depression. After years of stiff competition from EMI (later the fourth Imperial Records producer) and British Homophone, among a total of 22 British record labels in the mid-1930s, [1] Crystalate Manufacturing's troubled record section was bought out by Decca Records [1] [4] for US$200,000 [4] in 1937. [5] However, it continued making non-recording products as Crystalate Ltd. [1]

The company continued on in the electronic components industry at least into the early 1990s as Crystalate Holdings, which manufactured resistors in the UK, with annual sales of $180 million as of 1990. [6] In November 1983 Crystalate bought Royal Worcester for £23 million in a hostile takeover in order to acquire Welwyn Electronics, selling the china and ceramics divisions to the London Rubber Company and Coors Porcelain Company the next year. [7] [8] [9] Crystalate was chaired in the late 1980s by Lord Jenkin of Roding. [10] In 1989 the company issued a profit warning – net profits had plateaued since 1984 [10] – and in 1990 Vishay Intertechnology bid to buy Crystalate Holdings, [6] [11] but was turned down in favour of a British company, TT Group, in August 1990. [11] [12] TT Group became TT Electronics in 2000. [13]

Related Research Articles

Parlophone German–British record label

Parlophone Records Limited is a German–British record label founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch of the label was founded on 8 August 1923 as the Parlophone Company Limited, which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a jazz record label. On 5 October 1926, the Columbia Graphophone Company acquired Parlophone's business, name, logo, and release library, and merged with the Gramophone Company on 31 March 1931 to become Electric & Musical Industries Limited (EMI). George Martin joined Parlophone in 1950 as assistant to Oscar Preuss, the label manager, taking over as manager in 1955. Martin produced and released a mix of recordings, including by comedian Peter Sellers, pianist Mrs Mills, and teen idol Adam Faith.

Decca Records US/British record label

Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the U.K. and U.S. Decca labels was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre.

EMI Defunct British music recording and publishing company

EMI Group Limited was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 2012, it was the fourth largest business group and record label conglomerate in the music industry, and was one of the "Big Four" record companies. Its labels included EMI Records, Parlophone, Virgin Records, and Capitol Records, which are now owned by other companies.

Deutsche Grammophon German classical music record label

Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of labels in 1999. It is the oldest surviving established record company.

PolyGram N.V. was an entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a holding for their record companies, and was renamed "PolyGram" in 1972. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records and the Philips interest Phonogram Records. The company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disc gramophone, Emil Berliner.

EMI Records British record label

EMI Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. The original EMI Records was founded by the music company of the same name in 1972 as its flagship label, and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia and Parlophone record labels. The label was later launched worldwide. It has a branch in India called "EMI Records India", run by director Mohit Suri. In 2014, Universal Music Japan revived the label in Japan as the successor to EMI Records Japan. In June 2020, Universal revived the label as the successor to Virgin EMI, with Virgin Records now operating as an imprint of EMI Records.

Philips Records Record label

Philips Records is a record label founded by the Dutch electronics company Philips. In 1946, Philips acquired the company which pressed records for British Decca's Dutch outlet in Amsterdam.

Emma Kirkby English soprano (born 1949)

Dame Carolyn Emma Kirkby, is an English soprano and early music specialist. She has sung on over 100 recordings.

Decca Radar Former British manufacturer of radar systems

The Decca Radar company was a British manufacturer of radar systems. There were originally two divisions, Marine and Heavy Radar, with separate product lines. The latter was sold to Plessey in 1965, and the term "Decca Radar" normally refers to the Marine division. That division remained with Decca until 1979 when it purchased by Racal to form Racal-Decca. After a series of further mergers and purchases, from 2000 the division is part of Northrop Grumman.

Kiddyphone

Kiddyphone was a 1920s United Kingdom record label which issued small-sized gramophone records aimed at young children.

Oriole Records was a British record label, founded in 1925 by the London-based Levy Company, which owned a gramophone record subsidiary called Levaphone Records.

Imperial Records (1920)

Imperial Records, the second United Kingdom-based label of that name, went into business in 1920. It was owned by the Crystalate Gramophone Record Manufacturing Company Ltd. of Tonbridge, Kent, England. The company's main recording studio was in London. Most Imperial issues were recorded by the company, but some issues from masters leased from other companies in Continental Europe and from the United States' Banner Records also appeared on Imperial.

Rex Records (1933)

Rex Records was a United Kingdom-based record label founded in 1933 by the Crystalate Gramophone Record Manufacturing Company, also the parent of British Imperial Records. Rex released their first discs in September 1933, with the initial release bearing a catalogue number of 8000 or 8001. The company was taken over by Decca Records in March 1937. Rex Records were sold at Marks & Spencer's chain stores.

Decca Studios was a recording facility at 165 Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead, North London, England, controlled by Decca Records from 1937 to 1980. The building was once West Hampstead Town Hall, and had been converted to a recording studio by Crystalate Gramophone Record Manufacturing in 1928.

Edward Lewis (Decca)

Sir Edward Roberts Lewis was an English businessman, best known for leading the Decca recording and technology group for five decades from 1929. He built the company up from nothing to one of the major record labels of the world.

Kenneth Wilkinson

Kenneth Ernest Wilkinson was an audio engineer for Decca Records, known for engineering classical recordings with superb sound quality.

Reid and Sigrist was an English engineering company based at New Malden in Surrey. It later acquired sites at Desford and Braunstone in Leicestershire. Initially it developed and manufactured aircraft instrumentation and pilot selection aids but later diversified into flying training and aircraft design. During World War II the company was part of the Civilian Repair Organisation repairing, rebuilding and converting warplanes at the Desford site. Post-war, it continued to manufacture aviation instruments and guidance systems but also diversified further to produce cameras and optical instruments. In 1954, the company was purchased and taken over by the Decca Record Company.

Crystalate is an early plastic, a formulation of nitrocellulose, camphor, and alcohol invented in the late 19th century and patented by American inventor George Henry Burt. It is best known as a material for gramophone records produced in the UK by Crystalate Manufacturing Company, and for moulded billiards, pool and snooker balls, as produced by the Endolithic Company.

Arthur Haddy English recording engineer

Arthur Charles William Haddy was an English recording engineer. His work as Technical Director of the Decca Record Company Ltd. caused him to be nicknamed "the father of hi-fi".

TT Electronics Plc is a global manufacturer of electronic components and provider of manufacturing services, headquartered in Woking, England. The company engineers and manufactures sensors, power modules, resistors, magnetics, semiconductors, connectors and optoelectronics for the industrial, aerospace and defence, medical and transportation markets.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound. Vol. 1: A-L (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis Group. 2004. entry "Crystalate Gramophone Record Manufacturing Co., Ltd.". ISBN   0-203-48427-4 . Retrieved 2 July 2011.[ permanent dead link ] In turn citing "Andrews 1983/1984" for most of this information.
  2. ↑ Weindling, Dick; Colloms, Marianne (20 September 2013). "Making Music in West Hampstead and Kilburn". West Hampstead Life. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  3. ↑ Tolley, Trevor (1 September 2010). "British Crown Records". IAJRC Journal. International Association of Jazz Record Collectors.
  4. 1 2 "Decca Buys Record Unit of Crystalate Company". The Wall Street Journal. 16 March 1937. Retrieved 2 July 2011.
  5. ↑ "Gramophone Record Merger". The Times . London. 2 March 1937.
  6. 1 2 "Vishay will go to aid of Crystalate". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 19 May 1990. Retrieved 2 July 2011.
  7. ↑ "Worcester Factory Ownership". Worcester Porcelain Museum . Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  8. ↑ Jones, Stan (December 2007). "Welwyn and Worcester". History of Technology Newsletter December 2007. IET. p. 13. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
  9. ↑ "Company analysis – Crystalate. Welwyn Well Won". Investors chronicle. Vol. 71. Throgmorton Publications. 1985. p. 52.
  10. 1 2 Wilson, Andrew (1 August 1989). "Warning hits Crystalate". Herald Scotland. Retrieved 17 July 2011.
  11. 1 2 "Vishay loses in bid for British firm". The Philadelphia Inquirer. 22 August 1990. Retrieved 2 July 2011.
  12. ↑ Cole, Robert (31 March 1993). "TT Group results beat expectations". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2 July 2011.
  13. ↑ "About Us – Profile / History". TTElectronics.com. TT Electronics. Archived from the original on 4 October 2011. Retrieved 2 July 2011.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.