The Gramophone Company, based in the United Kingdom, was one of the early record company.

The Gramophone Company was founded by William Barry Owen and his partner/investor Trevor Williams in 1897 as the U.K. partner of Emile Berliner s United States based Berliner Gramophone. In December of 1900 William Owen gained the manufacturing rights for the Lambert Typewriter Company and The Gramophone Company was renamed to The Gramophone & Typewriter Company From 1901 on, the Gramophone Company s U.S. partner was Berliner Gramophone s successor, the Victor Talking Machine Company.

In February 1908 the company introduced new labels featuring the famous trademark known as His Master s Voice, generally referred to as HMV, to distinguish them from earlier labels which featured an outline of the Angel Records trademark. The latter had been designed by Theodore Birnbaum, an executive of the Gramophone Company pressing plant in Hanover, Germany. The Gramophone Company was never known as the HMV or His Master s Voice company. An icon of the company was to become very well known - the picture of a dog listening to an early phonograph painted by Francis Barraud.

In March 1931 The Gramophone Company merged with Columbia Graphophone Company to form Electrical and Music Industries Ltd. The Gramophone Company, Ltd. name, however, continued to be used for many decades, especially for copyright notices on records. For later history of the company, see EMI.

= See also =