Edison Bell
| Edison Bell | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1892 |
| Status | Defunct |
| Genre | Various |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Location | London, England |
Edison Bell was an English company that was the first distributor and an early manufacturer of gramophones and gramophone records. The company survived through several incarnations, becoming a top producer of budget records in England through the early 1930s until, after it was absorbed by Decca in 1932, production of various Edison Bell labels ceased.
Interest in Edison's phonograph was almost immediate in Britain. In 1879, Edison appointed George Edward Gouraud to represent Edison's European interests in the phonograph and telephone. Edison's overseas plans for his phonograph did not go smoothly, as Gouraud made a significant amount of money exhibiting the phonograph in ways of which met disapproval from Edison. Gouraud was successful at promoting awareness of the phonograph, but was not very good at selling the apparatus. Additionally, legal trouble arose regarding the patents of Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, in that Edison's original patent was for recording via indenting the surface, while the Bell-Tainter patents allowed for incising the recording surface. A negotiation for Gouraud's resignation brought the desired results, and as they were in America, the Edison and Bell-Tainter interests were merged into a new company in Britain.
The Edison Bell Phonograph Corporation, Ltd. was set up in October 1892 to handle Edison's phonograph manufacturing rights in Great Britain. In November of that year, the Edison Bell Phonograph Company was formed with headquarters at Bartholomew Lane in London. Edison Bell was given the exclusive right to manufacture phonographs in Britain, including the right to any improvements made by Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell, or Tainter. In late 1892, the company complained that machines of American manufacture were appearing in their proprietary area, but the North American Phonograph Company refused to cease exporting. Edison Bell did not sell phonographs and records, but merely leased them. Edison Bell attempted to keep the disc record out of England, preemptively declaring the device violated their patents, even before William Barry Owen arrived in London to promote the device. Edison Bell spent similar efforts engaged in patent disputes with other would-be phonograph manufacturers, including the Edisonia company run by James E. Hough, a former sewing-machine salesman from Manchester. Hough and Edison Bell eventually came to a mutual agreement and Edison Bell and Edisonia were merged under Stephen Moriarty in 1898 to become the Edison Bell Consolidated Phonograph Company, at Charing Cross Road in London. Sales up to this point had been highly sluggish. The American trade paper The Phonoscop blamed Edison Bell's "exorbitant" prices, as the equipment was twice as expensive in England as it was in the United States. Edison Bell was thus assigned patent rights in Australia, China, Japan, South America, and most importantly the United Kingdom. This version of the company sold phonographs and records, while a new organization, Edisonia, Ltd. was created to be the manufacturing arm of Edison Bell. Edison Bell was now the sole corporation with rights to distribute phonographs and Graphophones within Britain. As such, they distributed machines and records made by Edison, Columbia, Pathé, and Puck until 1902.
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