Welcome to the Bush pages

This section of the site deals with a company that (in my opinion) is one of the most underestimated manufacturers in the field of radio collecting; Bush. We'll come back to why I think this later (if you're interested, that is).

The company was founded in 1931, from the remains of the “Amplion” company, makers of some very beautiful horn loudspeakers. The premises of the company were initially located in Woodger Road, Shepherd's Bush, London, the location giving rise to the company's name.

The company did not stay in Shepherd's Bush for long - contemporary advertising literature shows they moved to new (and presumably bigger) premises in Power Road, Chiswick in about 1936/7. They remained there, branching out in to Devon in the 50s with outposts in Ireland, India and even Australia (Bush-Simpson) and New Zealand (Ultimate).

The company was taken over by Rank in 1945 when they purchased Gaumont-British, and in 1962 Bush was merged with the ailing Murphy Radio following a successful takeover bid by Rank: this eventually forming Rank Bush Murphy, or RBM for short. Whilst initial post-merger designs maintained some degree of individuality, eventually they became more Bush than Murphy and later just an exercise in badge-engineering.

The Bush brand disappeared from the shops during the early 80s, but has now reappeared as part of Alba plc.

This site is dedicated to those glory years of wireless, before television became King; and the sets that Bush produced in that era. We're going to meet the gentleman below a lot more on these pages; click on him to continue onwards.