PYE Museum Homepage The Story of Pye
1896 to
The history of the Pye Group of Companies in scientific & analytical instruments, radio & line communications, broadcasting, domestic radio & TV and industrial electronics from 1896 to the present day
The virtual museum of the Pye History Trust - Celebrating Britain’s Scientific & Industrial Heritage
 
Industrial Components, Processes & Services Division
 

The Pye Group was not just an organisation which simply assembled equipment from components supplied by other companies. From at least as early as 1925 W. G. Pye made its own electronic components, equipment cabinets and metal parts.

Photographs taken in 1929 and 1931 at the Pye Radio Works factory show that W. G. Pye adopted this approach from an early stage. Employees wound coils and transformers, made capacitors, radio cabinets, did electro-plating and manufactured their own production jigs and tools and fabricated metal parts. In 1935 Pye formed Cathodeon to manufacture cathode ray tubes for television receivers.

Today the technique of producing in-house the essential or strategic materials and components is termed 'vertical integration'.

When the post World War 2 growth phase began Pye Ltd continued the vertical integration process by creating various component supply companies of its own, acquiring other specialist companies and by establishing partnerships or obtaining licences for the first germanium transistors from Bell Laboratories and relays and switches also from the USA.

Over the period 1944 to 1972 Pye Ltd expanded rapidly by organic growth, acquisition or partnerships in order to have under its control the supply of wood products, capacitors, transistors, quartz crystals, transformers, sheet metal fabrications, painted and plated parts, computer progamming, financial services, television camera tubes, printed circuit boards etc. The Pye Group even owned a boat building company in Cambridge (H.C Banhams Ltd). Pye Ltd was a part owner of ATV, the first UK commercial television program company, and also operated the Pye Records label, featuring artists such as Petula Clark etc.

In 1948 Pye Ltd established Coronet Industries Ltd in Hong Kong as a low-cost assembly plant to serve the export market.

Pye Group supplier companies included: -

...to be continued

 
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