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THE GREAT MULLARD MAGIC BLOG

TODAY MITCHAM, TOMORROW, THE WORLD!

Posted by STEVE M on

TODAY MITCHAM, TOMORROW, THE WORLD!

It was 1937 and SS Eriks, General Manager of Mullard, sat in his office, comfortable in his Tan-sad office chair but he was troubled. Mitcham could no longer keep up with the pace of production required to fulfill the radio world's voracious demands for thermionic devices - something had to be done. Eriks was a chap whom melded humanitarianism with good business acumen, the Mitcham site could not be expanded further, what he needed was an available work force and a surfeit of cheap plentiful land upon which to build a new plant yet still have plenty of room for...

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STANLEY MULLARD HAS GONE SO HOW, WHERE AND WITH WHO DID MULLARD GO FORWARD

Posted by STEVE M on

STANLEY MULLARD HAS GONE SO HOW, WHERE AND WITH WHO DID MULLARD GO FORWARD

With Stanley out of the picture, Philips wasted no time in installing SS Eriks as General Manager. With technology transfer totally complete, valve production started at Mitcham and F Kloppert and ex Dutch forces man was sent over as Production Manager. By introducing draconian measures, he made Mitcham an effective plant. With production tightly controlled and mastery by Dutch management complete,, Eriks again repeated his proud boast that 'the only British part within a Mullard valve is the vacuum!' Eriks viewed his empire with puzzlement, efficiencies in manufacturing had been taken as far as they could but by 1937 it...

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AN INTERESTING QUESTION, WAS STANLEY MULLARD TOLERANT, TOURETTICAL OR TYRRANICAL?

Posted by STEVE M on

AN INTERESTING QUESTION, WAS STANLEY MULLARD TOLERANT, TOURETTICAL OR TYRRANICAL?

As the new scion of Mullard, I have just received by e-mail a question as to whether or not SR Mullard was an unpleasant man to work with. Many had commented that Stanley was a ‘rough diamond’ with little formal education. Most of his bad press seems to stem from the contretemps between himself and CO Stanley in the days before CO was the owner of WG Pye. At this time, Mullard was looking for sales expansion and CO Stanley as the charismatic owner of the marketing agency ARKS, hit upon a grand scheme whereby a new magazine entitled Radio...

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WHAT STANLEY MULLARD "THE MAKER OF THE VALVE" DID IN 1928!

Posted by STEVE M on

WHAT STANLEY MULLARD "THE MAKER OF THE VALVE"  DID IN 1928!

  Well, things were rubbing along famously but in 1925 Stanley decided that it was time to cash in his chips so he then spent the next couple of years wooing Philips and other shareholders alike to sell. Philips eventually stumped up £7 per share and the sale went ahead secretly in 1927 with all shares being registered in Stanley's name so the public didn't get wind of a major British manufacturer being taken over by a foreign company. This fiction was maintained quite successfully until 1938. With Philips now owning all of the shares in Mullard, change was looming...

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IMPROVEMENTS TO THE PM SERIES 1926 to 1928 -

Posted by STEVE MYCIUNKA on

IMPROVEMENTS TO THE PM SERIES 1926 to 1928 -

The unreliable 'split-pin' PM series were swiftly replaced by valves having a new improved base. The base was characterized by having the same ebonite base but the inset pins were now tubular, having two slots in orthogonal configuration with electrode lead arrangements..outs being passed up the pin centre and connected by soldering at the tips. The bases now had a paint filled groove also labeled ‘A’ to denote the anode connection adjacent to the anode pin – This paint was applied by deft fingered young ladies but the process was deemed too labour intensive and so was discontinued in 1928,...

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