Many piano makers operated in south London in the last century with one of the most well-known being W.H. Barnes, whose factory at 36-38 Peckham Road, Camberwell, still stands today and has been converted into apartments.
Founded by William Henry Barnes in 1828, the firm made uprights and baby grand pianos, both for other manufacturers and for sale in its own shop in Oxford Street, which is said to have had the largest single window in the country.
Most pianos were sold on hire purchase, with payments typically spread over five years. The companies hired ‘piano tracers’ to find the owners who had stopped payments. The tracers sometimes would dismantle the piano and throw it piece by piece out of the window to persuade reluctant players to pay up.
It’s said that one of the causes of the company's decline was the appointment as a director of the flamboyant and spendthrift Billy Barnes, a dance band leader. One of his early purchases was a Rolls-Royce in the shape of a motor boat.
RECORD SHOPS I REQUENTED IN THE 1950'S.
As with so many people of my generation my love of opera began when I was ten by going to see the film ' The Great Caruso ' in 1951.
My grandmother gave me a few Caruso records and records of some other great singers along with an old wind-up gramophone and so my
listening to records began. But I wanted the Pagliacci aria ( Vesti la giubba), and Mario Lanza singing the song Because. My parents
took me up to Oxford Street and into HMV, my first visit to a record shop, where I bought both those records and a Gigli record as
well (Quanto e bella).
I played all the records I had frequently for a year on the old wind-up, but the appeal waned when I saw the electric record players
that some family and friends had. There was therefore a hiatus in my visiting record shops until I was thirteen when I was bought a
basic but very smart portable player with a BSR turntable and head. From that point buying records resumed, and that meant back to
the HMV shop. I have memories that when I first went there one listened to the records in booths. But the LP record was making its
appearance, and the booths were converted to LP listening, while 78rpm turntables were placed in the centre of the floor and one listened
to the records through headphones, a most unsatisfactory experience.
I learned that other shops also sold records when I wanted to buy Ferrier singing 'What is life'. HMV did not keep Decca records,
so I walked further along Oxford Street to Barnes' piano showroom, almost opposite Selfridges, which was also a record shop for the
Decca label. As I got into my later teens (16 and 17) my record buying stepped up- not many LPs as mostly I could not afford these,
but continuing to buy 78s. HMV continued to stock 78s long after everyone had turned to LPs and 45s but I was now frequenting other shops.
I think it was about 1958 that I discovered Gramophone Exchange in Wardour Street. It was a long shop, the counter on the right for new
LPs and that on the left for second hand LPs, and just before you got to the listening booths at the end , the wall on the right was
covered from floor to ceiling with old 78s. I went through every shelf one by one and purchased many records, mostly ensembles so that
one got two to six voices for one record. I do not think I found anything of special value, but this shop was almost my second home and
some afternoons I would miss sixth form lessons to go through the shelves of Gramex.
Alan Schneider (2025)
