It could have been "Bidmead",
but presumably the other partner had a name with a better ring
to it? Maybe "Bidrob" or "Robmead" was discussed?
Whichever way you look at it "Roberts" sounds better.
Anyway, when the two lads, Harry Roberts and Leslie Bidmead, went
into partnership in 1932 they were already instilled in radio
and as with many early radio businesses one partner took the role
of salesman and the other the technical guru. Unlike many other
radio companies in the 30s Roberts did not seek to enlarge their
company using vast loans to finance grandiose factories, instead
they aimed at the high quality battery portable niche market.
Their first "factory" was in a couple of
rented rooms near Oxford Circus where they had decided to make
sets a cut above the rest. Numbers of sets made each year was
tiny but from the outset they concentrated on the quality end
of the market, so it was natural to approach the Harrods buyer
early on in the proceedings and then a coup de grace when, in
1939, the Queen bought a Roberts for her daughter, Princess Elizabeth.
The firm had already expanded (no doubt in no small measure from
monies received from the landed gentry via their favourite store)...
having moved to larger premises in Rathbone Place in 1936.
From Rathbone Place the Company moved to East Molesley in Surrey
and in 1955 they were awarded their first Royal Warrant, by then
having sold several sets to the Royal Family.
Many strange sets were made in the years
that followed, being encased in various exotic outer coverings
including mink and gold. The Roberts radio has always been identifiable
because, over the years it employed the same basic design of case.
Wood has until recently always been used and this material, although
covered in Rexine or whatever, gave it a certain solid feel and
no doubt a certain richness of sound not approached by the cheaper
plastic cased variety later adopted by rival manufacturers. No
doubt the complicated construction of the case as well as its
labour-intensive innards helped keep the price in a higher bracket
because rarely has the Roberts product been cheap.
Until relatively recently the inside of a Roberts has looked "British".
The performance has been superlative, the design first class but
the construction, certainly to my eyes, has looked scruffy. Still,
when the thing has been reassembled and a battery inserted, and
it's been switched on, the sound, which together with the exterior
look of the thing are the only yardsticks by which the public
can judge, are outstanding.
The sets can still be seen to this day gracing the windows of
most Radio and TV shops, nearly 70 years after the Roberts name
was hatched. In 1996, set production moved to Yorkshire from Surrey,
where the new brand owners, Glen Dimplex who took over in 1994
are located.