THE RISE AND FALL OF ASTOR

The available histories of this once great company contain many errors and do not do the memory of the company justice. This my attempt to correct this situation and hopefully provide an accurate account of events.

I'd like to thank the various people who have contributed to this research project particularly Kent Martin for providing much needed research at the State Library of Victoria as well as ensuring that I stay true to the facts.

Any questions about the accuracy of this history is welcome as the aim here is to get the history RIGHT rather than assemble a lot of heresay and facts of unknown or questionable source. This history is based on verifiable facts gathered from multiple reference sources. Newspaper articles provide much of the established timeline of events.

PART 1 - OVERVIEW:
The Astor brand evolved over time from a simple store to become part of a very large and complex set of companies that were arguably one of the largest electronics companies in Australia. The various company incarnations are:

1923-1929 Louis Coen Wireless Pty Ltd
1929-1939 Radio Corporation Pty Ltd
1939-1975 Electronic Industries Ltd

Astor was an operational division of Radio Corporation along with a number of other companies. With the company expansion in 1939 to form Electronic Industries Ltd, Radio Corporation (along with the Astor division) became itself a division of the new parent company. However, workers generally referred to the company simply as "Astor".
Founded in 1923 it remained an independent entity largely controlled by the Warner family until the takeover of the company by Philips Australia in 1970. It continued on as a brand division within Philips until 1975 when the brand (with the exception of Astor records) was finally withdrawn from the market and Electronics Industries Ltd and it's subsidiaries became an inactive company within the Philips corporate parent.

The following document was released by Electronic Industries Ltd in around 1950 or 1951 to provide an explanation of the company and its origins and provides a lot of useful background information. This document forms the basis of the expanded history that will be compiled here.

Electronic Industries Ltd.

MYTH BUSTING.
Unfortunately some "myths" have sprung up about Astor and it's fate and I want to emphasise the need to dispel these as they do a great injustice to the memory of the company. Even worse, they are entering into general circulation as "established fact" when the evidence proves otherwise.

Myth Number 1. Pye took over ownership of Astor.
This is simply not true. Radio Corporation Pty Ltd and later Electronic Industries Ltd remained an independent company until the Philips takeover in 1970.
The origins of this myth lie with Arthur Warner's sale of a large number of shares in the company to Pye Ltd (Cambridge UK) in 1959. See reference article below. It should be noted that the article clearly states that Pye Ltd had acquired "a large minority interest" in Electronic Industries. Pye's shareholding in Electronic Industries was later reported as being around 45% and as such did not constitute as being a controlling interest.

Myth Number 2. The origins of Astor lie with the company known as Clarke and Hagblom who manufactured condensers.

Again, there is no evidence to support this. Clarke and Hagblom was formed in 1923 by Fred Clarke and Axel Hagblom to manufacture variable condensers. The company traded from a different address than Louis Coen Wireless and there was no direct business connection at the time. The confusion here is due to the way Louis Coen Wireless expanded into Radio Corporation. As part of this expansion, the company formerly known as Clarke and Hagblom was acquired. This will be discussed in more detail in a later article.

Coming next: Part 2 - Astor - The early years, 1923 to 1929

Hi TV Collector,

Very, very interesting articles. Not only interesting, but important to radio history, and also Melbourne and Australian history.

Can't help but feel after reading the Electronics Industries Ltd article that they were, and they knew they were, on the edge of a massive expansion in the electronics industy ..... as we all know and are living through. It is disappointing that this industry and its spin-offs became lost to Australia. ...... so where did it go wrong? ..... what did they miss? Transistor technology?? ...... labour costs?? ..... too small a market??

Did you have some connection to the company??

Cheers,
Ian

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Cheers, Ian

The move to manufacturing televisions hit most of the companies hard. Many over-invested in the tooling up process and didn't bargain on the scenario that televisions were ultimately more expensive than radios. People didn't buy them at the same pace as radios and there was something even more expensive that people wanted to buy and this also displaced the television industry a bit - post war families had somewhere to live but grew tired of walking to work or using the tram system that governments were cutting away, so more and more families got acquainted with the motor car. Holden was getting all the money that would have gone to AWA, Philips and Astor.

And this was still twenty years before the tariff wall started to be knocked down.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

Astor did have a good feel for the electronics boom to come and were able to take full advantage of it.

The introduction of B&W TV was a boon to the large manufacturers as they had a new market of consumer products that were in demand. The small companies did not have the technical expertise or sufficient capital to expand into this new market.
However the TV boom was short lived and by the early 1960's sales had dropped back to a "normal" level. Coupled with a credit squeeze at the same time, it was a tough period for manufacturing.

Astor along with the other big companies made it through this period successfully only to succumb in 1970 just as the company was preparing for the next big electronics boom, colour TV.

The decline of Astor I'll discuss further later on but as a quick answer, there was no single reason for it. The death of Arthur Warner in 1966 was a major blow and the loss of his entrepreneurial skills was probably a major factor. The company by this time was massive with only a small management team which may have caused difficulties as well. Sales were also dropping off causing a cash flow problem.

I'm not in any way connected with Astor but have had the pleasure of talking to some ex-employees who remember the company fondly. The reason for my interest is help preserve a true historical account of a company that had a major role in the radio and electronics industry in Australia but is now barely remembered for what they once represented.

Pye's shareholding in Electronic Industries was later reported as being around 45% and as such did not constitute as being a controlling interest.

That would have been something the public was mostly ignorant of (esoteric limited independent competition).

Then Philips' move in 1970 - short-lived - obviously disastrous in retrospect (must have lost a boat load of money by the 1975 demise).

My dad, Stan Curnow, worked for Radio Corporation, and then Phillips from about 1948 to 1980. He initially worked as a toolmaker, making the dies for several radio enclosures and later a maintenance fitter.