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AEOLIAN VOCALION
The Aeolian Company Ltd., London.
Factory Hayes, Middlesex
Aeolian was founded by New York City piano maker William B. Tremaine as the Aeolian Organ & Music Co. (1887) to make automatic organs, and, after 1985, as the Aeolian Co. automatic pianos as well. (He had previous founded the Mechanical Orguinette Co. in 1878 to manufacture automated reed organs.)
The manufacture of residence or "chamber" organs to provide entertainment in the mansions of millionaires was an extremely profitable undertaking, and Aeolian virtually cornered the market in this trade, freeing them from the tight competition of church-organ building with its narrow profit margins
The pianola, a pneumatic player piano, soon after became extremely popular. It had been invented in 1895 by Edwin S. Votey, president of the Farrand & Votey Organ Co., Detroit.
In 1897, Votey joined Aeolian and in 1900 the firm obtained the patent for such instruments.
In 1903, Tremaine absorbed a number of companies making self-playing instruments, including the Weber Co., a New York piano maker since 1852, into the Aeolian, Weber Piano & Pianola Co.
In 1904 Aeolian sued the Los Angeles Art Organ Company for patent infringement of its player mechanism, leading to court victories that effectively shut down a competitor.
Other patent lawsuits were not always successful. As the pianola, in its turn, was supplanted by the newer Aeolian’s “Duo Art” reproducing piano (1913), which could reproduce the sound of a famous artist playing without manual intervention, the Aeolian, Weber Piano & Pianola Co. became the world’s leading manufacturer of such roll-operated instruments.
Interestingly, in 1916 the Aeolian Co. started making Vocalion gramophones and in 1917/18 started Vocalion Records, a maker of high-quality discs which in December 1924 was sold to Brunswick Records.
The phonograph was one of the main factors in the demise of the player piano. An attempt of the company to engage in the production of church and concert organs resulted in important installations at Duke University Chapel and Longwood Gardens. It was undermined by the Great Depression, during which the organ division was merged with the E.M. Skinner Organ Co. to become the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Co., a leading builder until the 1970s.
As the popularity of the player piano faded with the rise of the gramophone and radio, the company merged in 1932 with the American Piano Corp. (itself a 1930 consolidation of Chickering & Sons, Knabe & Co., and other manufacturers). The combined company was the Aeolian Corp. in 1959; it declared bankruptcy in 1985.
It had a British branch to London named The Aeolian Company Ltd., London which made portable gramophones from 1920 to 1950 and that the factory was located to Hayes, Middlesex.
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AEOLIAN VOCALION portable, 1924 - by Aeolian Co., USA - Made in London, UK |
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In 1912, the Orchestrelle Company was transformed into a public limited company registered in Britain, and after the Great War it expanded considerably, as this artist's impression shows. By 1920 it had effectively changed its name to Aeolian, in line with the American parent company.
This view is from the north side of the railway line, with the train heading away from Paddington and towards the west. The 1909 building is therefore seen from the opposite direction to the previous photo. The artist has failed to represent the stylish Diocletian windows (semi-circular) on the top floor!
The four-storey building on the left was the music roll factory, erected in 1910, and the new six-storey building at the rear dated from 1920, and was built to accommodate a huge expansion in the manufacture of pianos. The long low building, at the extreme left, and parallel to the railway, was used for the manufacture of Vocalion records.
On the extreme right can be seen the canal dock, which is still there today, and is most easily seen from the little bridge on the north side of the canal.
The first drain headers all tell the same story, but this tablet, at the top of the surviving factory building, over the main front doors, clearly confirms that the Orchestrelle Company's Hayes factory was initially completed in 1909. The diamond lozenge in the centre mirrors the design of the main doors below.
On the front of factory in 1909 the diamond lozenge is the same that the mother of pearl lozenge that are inserted on the top of portable gramophone.
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