THE HISTORY OF WHARFEDALE SPEAKERS
The HISTORY of WHARFEDALE SPEAKERS. In 1932, Gilbert Briggs built his very first loudspeaker in the cellar of his home in Ilkley, Yorkshire. This sleepy little market town was located in the valley of the river “Wharfe” – an area known to this day as ‘Wharfedale’.
This unlikely location would see the birth of a brand that was to become recognised all over the world, synonymous with quality in high-fidelity reproduction.
Gilbert Briggs is still much admired and respected throughout the world for his pioneering work in hi-fi reproduction and his endless pursuit of better sound quality – driven by his love of live music.
Gilbert setup a small factory near Bradford in 1933 to build his new loudspeaker drive units. Radio was an exciting new technology and word of the new transducers had spread quickly around the area.
Demand was growing quickly. Initially, the true spirit of the cottage industry, his wife, Doris Edna Briggs was the production department, spending many late nights soldering wires and winding coils.
Gilbert’s company had outgrown their small premises, so in 1936 they moved to a larger factory, again in Bradford.
When the war came, the factory continued. During the second half of the war, the Wharfedale Wireless Works were commissioned to make transformers for Marconi. Some 40,000 units were completed by an expert team of just 20 staff before the war finally came to an end.
In the same year, he entered the Bradford Radio Society’s annual competition and won first and second place, earning the company their first major order. From this point, the Wharfedale Wireless Works never looked back, going from strength to strength, producing up to 9000 units per year until the outbreak of World War II.
Wharfedale has continued manufacturing their ICONIC SPEAKERS from that time too this day. The machinery in their factory has changed over many years, now they use some of the latest computerised machines that can cut timber to perfection and add the latest finishes and veneers that couldn’t be achieved previously.
Wharfedale visits their past… A new Retro Model that embodied the Wharfedale pioneering research through the 60s, 70s and 80s, with a bloodline dating back to 1965, Wharfedale have rerelease The LINTON Speaker, manufactured according to the Wharfedale principles of quality and value for money.
For more info on Wharfedale speakers visit CSV audiovisual, or call 1300 130 260
