Bush is a British consumer electronics brand owned by

J Sainsbury plc J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company ...

(Sainsbury's), the parent company of the retailer

Argos Argos most often refers to: * Argos, Peloponnese, a city in Argolis, Greece ** Ancient Argos, the ancient city * Argos (retailer), a catalogue retailer operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland Argos or ARGOS may also refer to: Businesses ...

. The former Bush company is one of the most famous manufacturers of early British

radios Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitt ...

. The company is now defunct, but the Bush brand name survives as a

private label A private label, also called a private brand or private-label brand, is a brand owned by a company, offered by that company alongside and competing with brands from other businesses. A private-label brand is almost always offered exclusively by th ...

brand for budget electronics. Today, all Bush are sold exclusively at

and

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company ...

, with Argos having a wider selection.

History

Original Bush company

The company was founded in 1932 as Bush Radio from the remains of the Graham Amplion company, which had made

horn loudspeaker A horn loudspeaker is a loudspeaker or loudspeaker element which uses an acoustic horn to increase the overall efficiency of the driving element(s). A common form ''(right)'' consists of a compression driver which produces sound waves with a small ...

s as a subsidiary of the Gaumont British Picture Corporation. The brand name comes from Gaumont's Shepherd's Bush studios. The company expanded rapidly moving to a new factory at Power Road, Chiswick in 1936. Bush became part of the

Rank Rank is the relative position, value, worth, complexity, power, importance, authority, level, etc. of a person or object within a ranking, such as: Level or position in a hierarchical organization * Academic rank * Diplomatic rank * Hierarchy * ...

empire in 1945 and a brand new factory was opened at

Ernesettle Ernesettle is mentioned in the Domesday Book, which documented land in England and Wales, and describes as an ‘old Saxon manor’ there. By the 15th century, there were two farms, Great Ernesettle and Little Ernesettle, both named after Willia ...

, Plymouth in 1949. In 1950 the popular DAC90A and DAC10 radios were launched, along with the distinctive TV22 television. The Bush TR82 transistor radio, designed by

Ogle Design Ogle Design is a British design consultancy company founded in 1954 by David Ogle and based in Letchworth, Hertfordshire. History * 1954 Ogle Design was founded and produced many successful designs of industrial and household products. * 1959 T ...

, and launched in 1959, is regarded as an icon of early radio design. Although the first radio to use the Ogle cabinet design was actually the MB60, a battery/mains valve set from 1957 to 1959. The original Bush Radio company merged with

Murphy Radio Murphy Radio was a British manufacturer of radios and televisions based in Welwyn Garden City, England. Murphy Radio was founded in 1929 by Frank Murphy and E.J. Power as a volume manufacturer of home radio sets. Its factories were in the He ...

on 4 June 1962, and a new company was formed called Rank Bush Murphy Ltd. In 1978, Rank Bush Murphy was sold to British conglomerate

Great Universal Stores GUS plc was an FTSE 100 retailing, manufacturing and financial conglomerate based in the United Kingdom. GUS was an abbreviation of Great Universal Stores, the company's name before 2001, while it was also known as the ''Glorious Gussies'' amon ...

. Rank formed a joint venture with

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...

in 1978 called Rank Toshiba, and manufactured Toshiba designed televisions in

UK. In 1980 Rank terminated its agreement with Toshiba and the joint company was wound up. Toshiba took over the UK factory and continued to manufacture television sets alone.The Setmakers by Keith Geddes and Gordon Bussey ()

Purchase in the 1980s

The Bush brand name disappeared from the British market during the 1980s. However, since the purchase of the brand by Alba Group in 1986 (now known as Harvard International), it once again became common, being used primarily on electronic goods produced in China and televisions made in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

Sale to Home Retail Group

In November 2008, the Bush brand name, along with

Alba ''Alba'' ( , ) is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is also, in English language historiography, used to refer to the polity of Picts and Scots united in the ninth century as the Kingdom of Alba, until it developed into the Kingdom ...

, was purchased by

Home Retail Group Home Retail Group plc was a home and general merchandise retailer based in the United Kingdom. It was the parent company of Argos and Habitat, and once owned the do it yourself chain Homebase before selling it to the Australian retailer Wesfarme ...

, the parent company of

Homebase Homebase is a British home improvement retailer and garden centre with stores across the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Founded by Sainsbury's and GB-Inno-BM in 1979, the company was owned by Home Retail Group from October 2006, un ...

and

, for £15.25 million. As a result, the former Alba Group has now been renamed Harvard International. Harvard International still owns the Bush brand in Oceania. In 2013 a 7-inch tablet called MyTablet was released under the Bush brand; it cost £99.99.

Purchase by Sainsbury's

In September 2016, the British supermarket chain

completed its acquisition of Home Retail Group, bringing Argos, along with the Alba and Bush brands, under its ownership. In 2022 the Bush brand replaced the Alba brand, enabling Sainsbury's to have one main own brand electronics brand.

Product range

Current products

Bush now has products including: televisions, boomboxes, shelf stereos,

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

es,

washing machine A washing machine (laundry machine, clothes washer, washer, or simply wash) is a home appliance used to wash laundry. The term is mostly applied to machines that use water as opposed to dry cleaning (which uses alternative cleaning fluids and ...

s, radios, trimmers, headsets, headphones, ovens,

cooker Cooker may refer to several types of cooking appliances and devices used for cooking foods. Cookers * AGA cooker – a heat storage stove and cooker, which works on the principle that a heavy frame made from cast iron components can absorb hea ...

fridge A refrigerator, colloquially fridge, is a commercial and home appliance consisting of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump (mechanical, electronic or chemical) that transfers heat from its inside to its external environment so th ...

computer mice A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional space, two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer (user interface ...

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripheral ...

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and publ ...

turntables 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 ...

DVD player A DVD player is a device that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...

s, Blu-ray players,

home cinema Home cinema, also called home theaters or theater rooms, are home entertainment audio-visual systems that seek to reproduce a movie theater experience and mood using consumer electronics-grade video and audio equipment that is set up in a room ...

s, MP3 players, MP4 players,

dishwasher A dishwasher is a machine that is used to clean dishware, cookware, and cutlery automatically. Unlike manual dishwashing, which relies heavily on physical scrubbing to remove soiling, the mechanical dishwasher cleans by spraying hot water, ty ...

camcorder A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-swa ...

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

s and tablets. At least some of the Bush TV sets and some White Goods are made by Turkish company

Vestel Vestel is a Turkish home and professional appliances manufacturing company consisting of 18 companies specialised in electronics, major appliances and information technology. Vestel's headquarters and production plant are located in Manisa, while ...

. Reproductions of classic Bush Radio models from the 1950s and 1960s are also being sold today under the Bush brand. Some of these units also include DAB tuners.

Former products

A range known as Bush iD was used to brand items such as digital radios and

es under the Bush name since the 1980s. Since the purchase by Home Retail Group in 2008, the Bush iD branding is no longer used.

Marketing and branding

Bush has had a number of different logos over the years. It had a long standing one between the 1990s and 2014, and a separate one for its former Bush iD range.

Gallery

File:Bush DAC 90A.jpg, Bush DAC 90A radio Image:Bush TR82 Halogen Highlight.JPG, Bush Radio reproduction of 1959 TR82 transistor portable. A design icon of the early transistor radios File:Old radio.jpg, Bush brand reproduction of the

Philco Philco (an acronym for Philadelphia Battery Company) is an American electronics industry, electronics manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia. Philco was a pioneer in battery, radio, and television production. In 1961, the company was purchased ...

model 90 "cathedral radio" of 1931, a design icon of early radio, and the most recognised cathedral design sets

References

Sources

Radio and television brands Alba and Bush sold to Argos owner Home Retail GroupHome Retail Group signs contract for Intellectual Property Rights to Bush and Alba Trademarks

Bush Freesat Website

External links

at Argos.co.uk
Site on vintage Bush radios
*1950 Bush television https://web.archive.org/web/20151004114901/http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/radio_communication/1971-76.aspx
Traditional Bush Radios for saleBush Australia
{{Authority control Electronics companies of the United Kingdom Electronics companies established in 1932 Consumer electronics brands Audio equipment manufacturers of the United Kingdom Headphones manufacturers British brands Companies based in Milton Keynes Display technology companies 1932 establishments in England Radio manufacturers Sainsbury's