ABSTRACT
It appears that the earliest surviving recording in any format made by a monarch was one made in Balmoral Castle, Scotland, in 1888, on a Bell-Tainter Graphophone carried there by a solicitor on behalf of Henry Edmunds, the American Graphophone Co. representative in the U.K. A broadcast of that recording-now in the Science Museum, London-was made on 10 Nov 1891. A few words in the queen’s voice were heard, speaking about the tomatoes growing at Balmoral. It is reported that another record was made by Queen Victoria, in 1896; it was a cylinder sent by her with a message to the Emperor of Ethiopia, with instructions that it should be destroyed after he had heard it. There is no verification for the existence nor for the destruction of the record.
