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Shepherds Bush in London, suggested the name for a new radio company founded there in 1932. The company was formed as a subsidiary to the Gaumont British Picture Corporation after the ex-MD of the recently defunct Graham Amplion loudspeaker company had explained to the former's bosses that the Cinema industry was going to be associated with Television in a big way sooner rather than later. The way into TV, he explained, was through Radio and the first step was to set up a small radio design and manufacturing business so work started with a small band of men and women upstairs in one of Gaumont's factories.  Because of restrictions and protectiveness in the industry, Bush had to set up a chain of appointed dealers outside the "Radio Wholesalers Federation" but quickly sold 4000 of their first offering, a small 3-valve AC table model radio at their list price of £11. Having such a strong backing was useful as marketing was helped along by the Gaumont chain advertising and displaying Bush receivers in their cinema foyers. I don't remember the radios but I do remember that Gaumont cinemas had a big pool of goldfish in their foyers, at least I remember the one in our local picture house, after the war in Allerton, Liverpool. The fact that the name Bush is nowadays associated with Rank is due entirely to its film industry origin, in fact J Arthur Rank took a keen, hands- on interest in Bush after his company absorbed Gaumont in 1945 and so after the war Bush continued to expand, initially into additional premises in London, and then in 1949, into a new factory in Plymouth. There, television later joined radio production stretching the size of the new factory tenfold to 400,000 square feet. In 1962, Murphy another big name, was looking for a buyer and after an initial approach by Thorn, sold out to Rank. Bush now became "Rank Bush Murphy" with its new J Arthur Rank logo. |
