Beka-Grand - Biography

Biography - Beka-Grand

UK

For a summary of the Beka label in Germany see Beka Germany label biography

Imported German Beka records first became available in the UK in December 1904 as single sided 20.5cm (8”) disks. All the recorded material was of foreign origin, but in July 1905 Beka announced that it was to start recording British material. At about the same time 10” Beka Grands and 11” Beka Symphonie discs became available.

Recording experts from Beka arrived in the UK in the early autumn of 1905, and an advert for Beka UK recordings was published in November. The UK agent was Otto Ruhl, a British born subject of mixed German/British parentage.

In January 1906, the Odeon Records patent for double-sided records was overturned in Austria, and by April Beka discs were being pressed as both single and double-sided in 7,8,10 and 11 inch sizes.

The 12 inch Beka Meister discs became available in the UK in January 1907.

Around mid 1907, Beka adopted a new numbering system where the old face numbers (a simple increasing number sequence) were replaced by blocks of numbers allocated to each different country (see here).The British Beka discs were allocated a range 40,000 to 41,999, with most of the discs being Beka Grands, the few exceptions being British recorded Meisters.

By autumn 1908 many discs were being issued with a single catalogue number, rather than a face number for each side.

In August 1910 Beka was taken over by Carl Lindström AG (formed 1904), which had formerly only produced cylinder records. The 7,8 and 11 inch discs were immediately dropped from the catalogue, and no new additions were announced to the Beka Meister series, which was renamed in Germany to Parlophon in March 1911, although the name remained as Meister in the UK.

In May 1911 new Meister discs were released, and were allocated a 90,000 upward number range.

In December 1912 Lindström's new factory in Hertfordshire, England began to press discs, including those of the newly acquired Fonotipia group of labels. The whole of the UK Lindström business came under control of Carl Lindström (London) Ltd in March 1913.

In the spring of 1913, the 40,000 to 41,999 face number range had ben completely filled, and Beka face numbers then used a 35,000 range. This range was also used for other UK labels using Beka/Lindström masters, like Coliseum,Scala, and Jumbo.

At the start of the 1914-18 war, Otto Heinemann (a Lindström Director and Manager at the Hertford plant), left for the USA, where he was later to found the Okeh label. Otto Ruhl then became Managing Director of UK Beka Records.

In 1916 the Beka company in the UK was dissolved under the 'Trading with the Enemy' act. The UK factory was put under control of a holding company, The Hertford Record Company Ltd.,and was later transferred to the ownership of Columbia records.

In the early 1920s, Beka records were briefly advertised again (including some recent recordings made in Germany. It is almost certain that this was by Otto Ruhl, who had reformed his distribution company as Otto Ruhl (1922) Ltd.

By Autumn1923, Ruhl was running the newly established UK Parlophone Company, which had purchased the Hertford factory from Columbia. Many items in the early Parlophone catalogues came from Beka recordings.

Dating
There are a few exceptions to these Beka Grand release dates.
1909 : 1 to 245
1910: 246 to 374
1911: 375 to 489
1912: 490 to 625
1913: 626 to 780
1914: 781 to 935
1915: 936 to 1066, 1285 to 1287 (Welsh language)
1916: 1067 to 1164

A few discs were released in 1920 in the number range 1200 to 1210.

Source : Frank Andrews and Bill Dean Myatt; "Beka Records" ;RS 11, CLPGS 2011.

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