ABSTRACT
Founded in 1932, by Gilbert Briggs, in Yorkshire, England, Wharfedale has become one of the more venerable institutions in home audio. In 1933 Briggs set up a small factory in Bradford, England, in order to build the company’s increasingly popular loudspeaker drive units. From this time, Wharfedale went from strength to strength, and, following a move to a larger factory, production reached 9,000 speakers in the year of 1939. Production levels grew dramatically after the war, with loudspeakers being shipped across the world, and in 1956 Wharfedale formed its own sub-sidiary company in the U.S. The following year, the company opened a massive new automated cabinet factory in Bradford. In 1958 Briggs, by then over 68 years old, sold the company to the Rank Organization, a major U.K. industrial group which also owned the audio electronics company Leak and also Heco, a German loudspeaker company. Rank made major investments in R&D and in marketing and distribution, and Wharfedale pioneered technological developments such as the first use of ceramic magnets. By 1988 the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange, and in 1992 it changed its name to the Verity Group and purchased a number of other companies including Mission, Cyrus, and Quad Premier Musical Instruments. The then managing director of Wharfedale led a management buyout and formed a new company, the International Audio Group, which incorporated Wharfedale loudspeakers, Quad audio electronics, Leak high-end audio electronics, and Airedale loudspeakers. In 2001 Wharfedale had its sales, marketing, and design departments headquartered in Huntingdon, England, with a new production and distribution facility in Bradford, only a few miles away from the site of the original factory of 1933.[website: https://www.wharfedale.co.uk./]
HOWARD FERSTLER
An American singing duo, “the most successful husband and wife duet pair in the history of the phonograph” [Walsh]. She was born Bess Nicholson in Kokomo, Indiana, on 20 July 1875; he was born in Shawano, Wisconsin, on 13 July 1879. They married in 1904, and performed widely, doing standard ballads, light opera, and hymns. Elizabeth made some solo cylinders for Leeds & Catlin, Edison, and others, and then the two began their duet recordings in 1910, for Victor. “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere” was an early hit (#16700; 1910), though it did not reach the 1917 Victor catalog, where there were 17 other titles by the pair. Their final Victor recording was the most popular one, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” (#18287; 1917). The Wheelers also made disc records for Leeds & Catlin, on the Imperial, Concert, and Nassau labels.
