In early 1940, Alan Blumlein and his team at the EMI Central Research Labs began work on the technology behind the Capacitance Altimeter. This device works by measuring the differences in charge between a low-lying aircraft and the charge at Earth’s surface, therefore enabling aircraft and other vehicles to fly at night and in cloudy… Read more »
The Trust would like to thank Ricky Ford for sending in his memory of EMI. Ricky was an EMI recording artist and has shared a little about his time with the label. It was 1961 in Bristol a truly daring and controversial musical called A MAN DIES was produced, it was the first RocknRoll religious musical.… Read more »
In December 1900, William Barry Owen (co-founder of the British Gramophone Company) gained the rights to sell and manufacture the newly developed Lambert Typewriter. The name of the company was then changed to “The Gramophone and Typewriter Ltd.” The Lambert Typewriter was initially taken on as insurance against the possible failure of the Gramophone as… Read more »
Alan Blumlein was a senior sound engineer at EMI’s Central Research Laboratories (CRL) on the Hayes factory site. He joined the company when Columbia and The Gramophone Company merged in 1931. Over his lifetime he was a prolific inventor, developing huge technological advances within the sound engineering field. After a night at the cinema with… Read more »
This silver spade was used to cut the first sod on the site of the Gramophone and Typewriter Company building. World-famous Gramophone Company tenor Edward Lloyd was given the honour of breaking the first sod at the Blyth Road site on February 9th, 1907. This spade is currently preserved at the EMI Archive Trust. David Hughes, former… Read more »
The Trust would like to thank Margaret Carvalho, who has kindly agreed to contribute a memory to our Memories of EMI Campaign (#memoriesofEMI.) She sent in a picture of herself aged 16 and told us about her trip to see the recordings of a Radio Luxembourg show. “When I was 16, I remember travelling to… Read more »
Rupert Perry’s Story of Manchester Square, 1987. Recorded at the EMI Archive, 2nd October 2013. The Trust would like to thank Rupert Perry, who has kindly agreed to be the first person to contribute a memory to our Memories of EMI Campaign. RP: It was a momentous day, it was a momentous week because we… Read more »
The EMI Group Archive Trust was delighted to welcome Age UK to the EMI Archive Trust exhibition in The Old Vinyl Factory in Hayes. Many of the Age UK visitors used to work on the EMI site in the factories and the offices. We sat down to talk about some of their memories of the… Read more »
In 1910 this HMV “monarch” Gramophone was loaned by The Gramophone Company to Captain Scott to keep expedition team entertained as they made their way to the South Pole
Past exhibition “Made in Hayes” in London ran from June 2013 to 2017. The original article, posted in June 2014, was amended in May 2026. The Old Vinyl Factory development is based on the old “His Master’s Voice” EMI factory site in Hayes. The newly converted office blocks hosted the ‘Made in Hayes’ exhibition about… Read more »