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| Eagle Engineering Co., Ltd. was
started in 1911, by a take over of Eagle Works in Saltisford, Warwick,
before that in the hands of William Glover & Sons,
wheelwrights and tools factory. |
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Chakophone logo |
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| In
1919-1920, not far from there, Champ Kay and Company was started
by Guy Henry Champ and his partner George Osborne Ernest Kay.
The company offered repairs and overhauls
to motor car lighting and starting sets and recharging batteries
(having the Exide battery agency). |
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Eagle Engineering Co. Ltd. factory in 1921 |
| In 1922 Champ and Kay started
operating wireless installations, offered the supply of
parts and,
as reported in the local press,
operated a receiving
station for
customers, so they could hear wireless broadcasts. |
| In the January of 1923 it was
announced that Messrs Champ and Kay & Co. decided to
throw in their lot with The Eagle Engineering Company,
just up the road from where Champ and Kay had been
operating. In Eagle Works they were absorbed into a
Electrical and Wireless department supplying any
requirements electrically, lighting sets, maintain the
Exide battery service and produce Chakophone wireless
sets. The offices of Eagle Wireless Suppy
Co. Ltd. were at 8 Great Russell Street, London, W.C.1. |
| The Eagle Engineering Company was an
all-round manufacturer of vehicle bodies and every type
of trade’s man employed, so manufacturing wireless sets
was easy for them to adapt. |
| During the period 1923 to around
1936, they produced a wide range of Chakophone wireless
sets that were manufactured in Eagle Works and in the
later days in a former Brewery building at the rear of
Eagle Works, up to the winding up of the wireless
department in 1936, when manufacturing of Chakophone
wireless sets ended. |
| During the period 1923 to the early
1930’s Eagle Engineering Co. Ltd attended the Wireless
Shows in London displaying their products as did many
other similar companies of the day. |
Not much is known about the later
life of Mr Kay, other then that he moved to Birmingham.
Mr Champ, well known at the time, set up a retail shop
in Smith Street, Warwick, called The Eagle Wireless
Supply Co. Ltd, where he sold Murphy radios, having the
agency.
Sadly the journey ends with the death of Mr Champ on the
31st March 1951. |
| (With many thanks to Andrew Humphriss
for a large part of the story) |
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