ABSTRACT
This chapter offers the sketch of the route and reception of E. Douglas Archibald’s phonographic tour in Australia and New Zealand. Prior to steaming south across a different kind of wave, Archibald became involved with the Edison Company’s British operations in 1888, at a time when the exhibitionary popularization of the ‘perfected’ phonograph began in earnest. The exhibition programme also changed and grew as the tour progressed, eventually including field recordings taken on many legs of the tour. Even on return dates, audiences were earwitnesses to the sonic evidence of Archibald’s ‘world wanderings.’ Archibald was also an inveterate correspondent and traveller, with a keen interest in the affairs of the British Empire, particularly regarding matters of climate, infrastructure and administration. Archibald’s advertisements in the local periodical press meaningfully played with this sense of geographical distance and communication, trumpeting, for instance, that ‘Gladstone will speak in Launceston tonight.’.
