Philips Records Ltd. started up in Britain in January 1953 in the same year as Pye Records, just two months after the record charts were first introduced in the UK by the New Musical Express. UK pressings on shellac were initially manufactured at the National Plastics Company on the North Circular Road at Walthamstow in east London, before they set up their own large pressing plant at a new adjacent building in 1958. Together with the well-established companies EMI and Decca, they became the four major record labels in the UK. (Polydor and the German classical labels Heliodor and Deutsche Grammophon started issuing material later on in Britain in 1959.)

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An important deal was struck at the very beginning of 1953 with Columbia Records in America which enabled Philips (and later Fontana in 1958) to release all their product in the UK after the U.S. giant terminated their long standing contract with EMI. Another contract was signed in the late 1950s with Caedmon, the New York based spoken word label to issue albums and extended-play discs which resulted in 30 complete Shakespeare plays being released as three or four record boxed sets with full texts supplied, as well as all the Shakespeare sonnets read by John Gielgud. Further contracts were made at the same time with the prestigious Riverside jazz label and Audio Fidelity, a U.S. label specialising in extreme stereo sound recordings. These achieved modest but important sales for the now fast expanding Philips Records Group. The American Mercury label and its jazz repertoire spin off Limelight, were bought by Philips in 1964.

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But at the start in 1953, it was the age of 78rpm records and the very birth of vinyl albums which initially came in a 10-inch size before the 12-inch was introduced a year later. 45rpm extended-play discs were released in September 1955, although 45rpm single-play discs were not issued until 1958. The company continued to prosper throughout the 1950s until the end of the 1990s, with a wide and successful roster of popular artists and a meticulously recorded classical repertoire.

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By 1971, the staff and the company had changed considerably and was re-named Phonogram Records. Many new rock, pop and soul labels were issued by Phonogram in the Seventies including Chess, Avco, Janus/Westbound, All Platinum, Sire, De-Lite, etc., in addition to the firmly established Philips, Fontana, Vertigo and Mercury labels.

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So here is the story of Philips Industries' involvement in recorded music in Britain during a period that lasted 45 years, before being merged with many other record companies into the Universal Music Group in 1998. It shows how the music and the various labels were developed and the people who made it happen.