The Gramophone Company Limited (The Gramophone Co. Ltd.), based in the United Kingdom and founded by
Emil Berliner, was one of the early
recording companies, the parent organisation for the ''
His Master's Voice
His Master's Voice (HMV) was the name of a major British record label created in 1901 by The Gramophone Co. Ltd. The phrase was coined in the late 1890s from the title of a painting by English artist Francis Barraud, which depicted a Jack Russ ...
(HMV)'' label, and the European affiliate of the American
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidi ...
. Although the company merged with the
Columbia Graphophone Company
Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd. was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom.
Founded in 1917 as an offshoot of the American Columbia Phonograph Company, it became an independent British-owned company in 1922 in a managemen ...
in 1931 to form
Electric and Musical Industries Limited (EMI), its name "The Gramophone Company Limited" continued in the UK into the 1970s.
History
The Gramophone Company was founded in April 1898 by
William Barry Owen and
Edmund Trevor Lloyd Wynne Williams, commissioned by Emil Berliner, in London, England.
Owen was acting as agent for
Emile Berliner
Emile Berliner (May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929) originally Emil Berliner, was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record (called a "gramophone record" in British and American English) used with a ...
, inventor of the
gramophone record
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts ne ...
, whilst Williams provided the finances. Most of the company's early discs were made in
Hanover, Germany
Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germa ...
at a plant operated by members of Berliner's family, though it had operations around the world.
In 1898,
Fred Gaisberg
Frederick William Gaisberg (1 January 1873 – 2 September 1951) was an American musician, recording engineer and one of the earliest classical music producers for the gramophone. He himself did not use the term 'producer', and was not an impresari ...
moved from the U.S. to London to set up the first disc recording studio in Europe; it was situated in Maiden Lane. Among early artists he recorded was
Syria Lamont, an Australian soprano whose single "Coming through the Rye" was one of the first ever issued. In December 1900, Owen gained the manufacturing rights for the
Lambert Typewriter Company
Lambert may refer to
People
*Lambert (name), a given name and surname
* Lambert, Bishop of Ostia (c. 1036–1130), became Pope Honorius II
*Lambert, Margrave of Tuscany (fl. 929–931), also count and duke of Lucca
*Lambert (pianist), stage-name ...
, and the Gramophone Company was for a few years renamed the Gramophone & Typewriter Ltd. This was an attempt to diversify the business model, in response to a series of lawsuits by
Edison Bell
Edison Bell was an English company that was the first distributor and an early manufacturer of Phonograph, gramophones and gramophone records. The company survived through several incarnations, becoming a top producer of budget records in Englan ...
.
Lawsuits
The Berliner Gramophone Company was hit the hardest with a lawsuit that involved a former employee, Frank Seaman. Berliner had hired Seamon, part of The National Gramophone Company, to handle the distribution of record players and disk as an exclusive sales agent. In secret, he started producing a product inferior to the Gramophone, which he called the Zonophone and began solely marketing that instead of the gramophone. Berliner cancelled his contract with The National Gramophone Company, and in turn was sued for breach of contract.
In 1900, the U.S. parent of Gramophone lost a patent infringement suit brought on by
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the A ...
and
Zonophone, and was no longer permitted to produce records in the U.S.
The agreement allowed Columbia to produce disc records themselves in the United States, which they began doing in 1901, with the UK Gramophone Company and others continuing to do so outside of the US. Emile Berliner established Berliner Gramophone in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...
, where he became Victor's Canadian distributor and held the rights in Canada to the "His Master's Voice" trademark.
Logo change
In February 1909, the company introduced new labels featuring the famous trademark known as "
His Master's Voice
His Master's Voice (HMV) was the name of a major British record label created in 1901 by The Gramophone Co. Ltd. The phrase was coined in the late 1890s from the title of a painting by English artist Francis Barraud, which depicted a Jack Russ ...
", generally referred to as HMV, to distinguish them from earlier labels which featured an outline of the
Recording Angel trademark. The latter had been designed by Theodore Birnbaum, an executive of the Gramophone Company pressing plant in Hanover, Germany. While the general public came to refer to the records and company as "His Master's Voice" or "HMV" because of the prominence of the phrase on the record labels, The Gramophone Company was never officially known as the HMV or His Master's Voice Company. The painting "His Master's Voice" was made in the 1890s with the dog
Nipper
Nipper (1884 – September 1895) was a dog from Bristol, England, who served as the model for an 1898 painting by Francis Barraud titled ''His Master's Voice''. This image became one of the world's best known trademarks, the famous dog-and-gr ...
listening to an Edison cylinder
phonograph
A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
.
In 1899, Owen bought the painting from Francis Barraud, the artist, and asked him to paint out the Edison machine and substitute a Gramophone, which he did. In 1900,
Emile Berliner
Emile Berliner (May 20, 1851 – August 3, 1929) originally Emil Berliner, was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record (called a "gramophone record" in British and American English) used with a ...
acquired the US rights to the painting and it became the trademark of the
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidi ...
in 1901. UK rights to the logo were reserved by Gramophone. Nipper the dog lived from 1884 to 1895 and is honoured in England with a celebrated grave marker.
Recording studios
In the mid-1920s, company chairman Trevor Osmond Williams approved funding for the company to secure property and build a recording studio, putting F. H. Dart from the company's technical recording department in charge of the project. Number 3 Abbey Road was acquired in 1929 and, after nearly 2 years of extensive renovations, the 3-studio facility that would come to be known as
EMI Recording Studios (and eventually
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music ...
) opened on November 12, 1931.
Formation of EMI
In March 1931, Gramophone merged with the English Columbia Graphophone Company to form Electric and Musical Industries Ltd (EMI). The "Gramophone Company, Ltd." name, however, continued to be used for many decades, especially for copyright notices on records.
Gramophone Company of India
Saregama India Ltd. (Saregama refers to the first four notes of the Indian musical scale); formerly known as The Gramophone Company Of India Ltd. is India's oldest music label owned by the RP- Sanjiv Goenka Group of companies. The company i ...
was formed in 1946. The Gramophone Company Ltd legal entity was renamed EMI Records Ltd. in 1973.
Acoustic recordings
From the 1890s to mid-1925, recordings were made without any electrical equipment, relying instead upon the energy inherent in the sound waves generated by the performers, to activate the recording apparatu
See also
*
List of record labels
File:Alvinoreyguitarboogie.jpg
File:AmMusicBunk78.jpg
File:Bingola1011b.jpg
Lists of record labels cover record labels, brands or trademarks associated with marketing of music recordings and music videos. The lists are organized alphabetically, b ...
*
EMI
*
His Master's Voice
His Master's Voice (HMV) was the name of a major British record label created in 1901 by The Gramophone Co. Ltd. The phrase was coined in the late 1890s from the title of a painting by English artist Francis Barraud, which depicted a Jack Russ ...
*
List of phonograph manufacturers
This is a list of phonograph manufacturers. The phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone, record player or turntable, is a device introduced in 1877 for the mechanical recording and reproduction of sound.
Phonograph manufacturer ...
*
Angel Records
Angel Records was a record label founded by EMI in 1953. It specialised in classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score. and one Peter Sellers comedy disc. The famous Recording Angel trademark was used by the Gramophon ...
*
Nipper
Nipper (1884 – September 1895) was a dog from Bristol, England, who served as the model for an 1898 painting by Francis Barraud titled ''His Master's Voice''. This image became one of the world's best known trademarks, the famous dog-and-gr ...
the dog, and logo variations
*''
Addis v Gramophone Co Ltd
''Addis v Gramophone Co Ltd'' 909AC 488is an old English contract law and UK labour law case, which used to restrict damages for non-pecuniary losses for breach of contract.
Facts
Mr Addis was Gramophone’s manager in Calcutta. In October 1905 ...
''
909UKHL 1
References
* Death of Gramophone Pioneer: Uxbridge & W. Drayton Gazette December 13, 1946
* John R. Bennett: ''A catalogue of vocal recordings from the English catalogues of the Gramophone Company 1898–1899, the Gramophone Company Limited 1899 - 1900, the Gramophone & Typewriter Company Limited 1901–1907 and the Gramophone Company Limited 1907 – 1925''. England,Oakwood Press, 1956. Available a
archive.org(reprint: Westport, Conn.,USA, Greenwood Press, 1978. )
* Alan Kelly: ''His master's voice – La voce del padrone, the Italian catalogue; a complete numerical catalogue of Italian gramophone recordings made from 1898 to 1929 in Italy and elsewhere by the Gramophone Company Ltd.''. New York; NY
t al.
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...
Greenwood Press, 1988.
* Alan Kelly: ''His master's voice, the French catalogue; a complete numerical catalogue of French gramophone recordings made from 1898 to 1929 in France and elsewhere by the Gramophone Company Ltd''. New York; NY
t al.
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...
Greenwood Press, 1990.
* Alan Kelly: ''His master's voice, the German catalogue; a complete numerical catalogue of German gramophone recordings made from 1898 to 1929 in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere by The Gramophone Company Ltd''. New York; NY
t al.
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...
Greenwood Press, 1994.
* Alan Kelly; Jacques Klöters: ''His master's voice, the Dutch catalogue; a complete numerical catalogue of Dutch and Belgian gramophone recordings made from 1900 to 1929 in Holland, Belgium, and elsewhere by the Gramophone Company Ltd''. Westport, Conn.
t al.
T, or t, is the twentieth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is der ...
Greenwood Press, 1997.
* ''The voice, the magazine of the Gramophone Co., Ltd.'', Hayes, Middlesex, 1.1917 - 35.1954
External links
The Gramophone Company's trademark gramophone 1898Kelly Online DatabaseSearchable database of recordings made by the Gramophone Company, and its successor corporations during the 78 RPM era.
{{Authority control
British record labels
Jazz record labels
1898 establishments in the United Kingdom
1931 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Record labels established in 1898
Record labels disestablished in 1931
EMI
Phonograph manufacturers
Audio equipment manufacturers of the United Kingdom