Edison Bell Way

EDISON BELL WAY

The arrival in Huntingdon, in 1924, of the Edison Bell Company caused a major stir in the town. It was not just the huge boilers that had to be dragged from the railway to the factory in Ermine Street but the fact that Huntingdon had just acquired its first light engineering works. Edison Bell's managing director James Hough saw Huntingdon as a perfect place to expand his business of making Gramophone records.

Hough was a good businessman and had made his money by buying up Edison Bell's American Patents and creating his own works in London. In Huntingdon he quickly built up a large workforce of some 300 people who were engaged in pressing records of popular songs and the company expanded into the manufacture of gramophones and radios. This highly skilled workforce became vital to the war effort during the 2nd World War when every aircraft flying from our airfields had to be fitted with reliable radios which were often repaired in Huntingdon's workshops.

After just four years the factory was razed to the ground by fire, but it was rebuilt and survived until the mid 1930's when the record making business was absorbed by Decca Records. Eventually the site was acquired by The Silent Channel Company in the early 1960's and it is now the link road bearing the Edison Bell name

Thanks to 

Richard Meredith

Huntingdon and Godmanchester Civic Society

Who wrote the piece for About Town Issue 64

I wonder whether this first manufacturing company spawned the famous Advanced Composite and Audio companies that Huntingdon became renowned for many years later.  I suspect there might even be a link to the aviation manufacturing business established on Portholme

#HBN #HMA #Huntingdon