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British 78rpm record labels whose name begins with E. Using the letter links below you can see pages for other letters.
 Unless otherwise noted, all research and images are my own, but as you will see, many other people have helped, especially with the label catalogue listings.

All images are thumbnails, so clicking on them will display a full-sized image. Where the label name is a link, clicking it will take you to a new page with more information and, in most cases, an attempt to list all issues on that label.

  ******* Private Record Companies, those that produced bespoke one-off recordings, have now been moved to a separate page. Click here to go there ***********

Page last updated on: August 26, 2024

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Label Label Description Images
Early Welsh Music Society These records date from early 1937. They were produced by Dolmetsch Recods (q.v.) and there were three records numbered DR 1 to DR 3.

Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for providing the label image.
Ebonoid This was a vertical-cut disc produced by the Clarion Record Co just before WWI. They were long-playing (5 minutes each side) but short-lived.
Price was 3/- each.

 

My thanks to Norman Field for providing the label scan.
Eboracum Record Society Eboracum was the Roman name for the garrison at York, so not surprisingly, this society was based there. The Eboracum Record Society is thought to have been formed in the mid-1940s specifically to record the organ in York Minster. However, the records such as the one seen here are understood to date from the 1950s and it may be that they were pressed by EMI.
The 10" discs had an E-100 catalogue series and 12" were in the E-500 range, but it is not known how many different ones were issued.
The organist and composer, Francis Jackson, who is the performer on most of the records, was the incumbant organist at York Minster at the time.

Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for providing the label image.
Echo These were 10" records prodcued in the mid-1950s for the Association of Ukranians in Great Britain. They were made by Levy's Oriole Records Ltd with a catalogue in the E-100 series.
Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for providing the label image.
Eclipse

 

 The first Eclipse record dates from just before WWI. It was manufactured in Germany for the British market. They are very rare, but obviously had ceased to exist on the outbreak of WWI in 1914.
It is not known for who these records were made, but it is thought they were pressed by Globophon in Germany, using their own recordings, which have a 3-digit matrix number, and London recordings, which are in a 6000 series. The catalogue numbers may also  be more than one series, with the 100- range being band and instrumental and the 300-range being vocal, but note a solitary 200- series in the listing just to make things difficult!

Thanks to Ray Stephenson for the label photo.
Eclipse (8")

 

The very much more common 8" Eclipse record was launched in April 1931 and was available at only 6d from Woolworth's. The recording quality was good, as was the material. To keep the costs down, one side was usually a non-copyright song bought outright from the composer or publisher. All masters were English, and the catalogue started sensibly at 1 and ran to 1011 by July 1935 when they were discontinued. There was also a blue-labelled SC-1 series for more serious music, which ran up to SC-160.
Edison The original recording company in the United States, set up by Thomas Edison, started manufacturing discs in 1913. Known as "Diamond Discs" they were ¼" thick and had a fine vertical cut groove. These were also imported on the UK from August 1922; the imports recognisable by the publisher's copyright stamp found attached to the label (see example, right). 

Edison also produced a long-playing vertical cut version of the Diamond disc, and, amazingly, these also seemed to have made their way to the UK, judging by the example, right. (Apologies for the low quality of this image.)

In the summer of 1929, the Edison company started producing standard lateral cut grooved records and it appears these were also imported into the UK, though only one known example has turned up in recent years. The Edison company ceased production in October 1929.

The popular (50000) series were sold at 5/6 and the standard (80000) series were 8/6. The high price, combined with the fact you needed a special (and expensive) machine to play them has ensuree that they remained rare.
The laterals were a cheaper at about 3/6, but still expensive: about the same price as an HMV record, but without the prestigious named artists.
Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for the scan of the Edison lateral.


Edison Bell The first image shows a Brtish pressing of an export Edison Bell product, which is effectively a "Winner" but the label is just "Edison Bell" hence its incluion here. Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for the scan of the label.

The second image is of an interesting historic recording. Apart from all the build-up about Florence Nightingale, the record concludes with a dubbing of Nightingale's own voice, taken from a very much earlier recording (she died in 1910; this record dates from the early 1930s). The words she speaks are quoted on the sleeve (see photo).  The label describes the record as "19th century celebrity series No 1". As far as I am aware, this was the first and only issue in this series!
 Click here to hear the recording of Florence Nightingale's voice (dated 1890)

 Note: The records issued as "Edison Bell Electron", "Edison Bell Radio", "Edison Bell Velvet Face" and "Edison Bell Winner" will be found under Electron, Radio, Velvet Face and Winner respectively.
Eighty-Eight (88) I'm guessing this dates from the 1950s, but know nothing about the label other than the recordings were made by Payne's Recording Service of 213, Bromley Road, London S.E.6.
As all issues were of piano solos, I assume the label name refers to the 88 notes on the piano.

I only have details of two issues, thanks to Richard Prout for providing these: Please let me know if there were any more.
Cat No Matrix No Title Artists
881 PP-1 Powerhouse Boogie Woogie Cyril Scutt (piano)
881 PP-2 Rockin' The Blues Cyril Scutt (piano)
882 PP-3 / O.1526 Delta Express Cyril Scutt (piano)
882 PP-4 / O.1527 Steady Stomp Boogie Cyril Scutt (piano)

Thanks to Robert GIrling for providing the label image.
Electric Another rare pre-WWI disc record using the latest "buzzword" as it's name. They were not electrically recorded, of course.  
Please e-mail me with details of ANY of these records. Also a scan.		  
Electrolux There were only two different records with this name, both made by EMI in 1949 & 1950. They were numbered SS-10 and SS-13 respectively and were prodcuted for presentation to the Electrolux company's dealers and agents at Christmas in those two years.

Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for providing the label image.
Electron Electron records were a superior product from J. E. Hough's Edison Bell company, to replace the   (mainly) acoustically recorded "Velvet Face" records. Electrons were all electric recordings and all British matrices. Their price means they did not sell well and are rarely found today, compared with Winner records. They were available from 1927 to 1929 and the catalogue ran from 0150 to 0303. A 12" series was also produced with an X-500 series catalogue.
Elephone Elephone records were make by The Universal Talking Machine Company which was one of William Barraud's first forays into the early Gramophone record field. He was later involved in the Invicta record company which produced Invicta and Guardsman records. Elephone records date to about 1908-09 and were, I understand, made for exporting to India and much of the material issued on the label was of Indian music. The fact they were exported from Britain explains why they are so hard to find here.
Elim Manufactured by Crystalate/Vocalion, Elim records date from the early 1930s, with a label design very reminiscent of the "Broadcast 12 Super" label and with masters in a CP (Crystalate Private) series and catalogue numbers starting at E-1. I suspect the label was quite short-lived. All Elim records were of a religious nature and were produced on behalf of The Elim Publishing Company Ltd. of Park Crescent , London SW 4.
Embassy After a break of about 20 years following the last "Crown" record, Embassy was the next Woolworths-only record and appeared first in 1954 and cost 4/6. They were recorded by Levy's Oriole Company at their studios in 73 Bond Street, London and pressed at the Oriole factory in Aylesbury, Bucks. Embassy records provided high-quality cover recordings of popular chart hits. It is said that sometimes The Embassy issue appeared in the shops before the original was released. If this did happen, it would have been an American hit awaiting release in Britian. Some Embassy cover versions outsold the originals: Maureen Evans' version of Stupid Cupid on Embassy famously outsold the Connie Francis original on MGM, and sales were generally very high, which may be why Embassy record sales became excluded from the published chart "Top 20". The last 78s date from 1961 and Embassy continued at 45rpm (and as LPs, and also EPs) until 1965 when Oriole was taken over by CBS.
The main catalogue series started at WB-101, running up to the WB-400s by 1961 when the format changed to 45rpm only. The highest 78rpm I've seen a reference to is WB-433, issued in January 1961.
There was another short series of specials with different prefixes of CR (children;'s record), PT (party time), HT (holiday time) and XC (Christmas). These used one number series starting at 100 and running to just 107 as far as I know. The CR-series had a special label (see right), the others used the standard red with silver printing.                         Links to other sites regarding this label:    Embassy Records             Woolworth's Museum

Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for providing the label images.
Empire There were at least 6 different Empire records in Britain at various times, three from the pre-1920 era and three from the 1930s.

1. The first was a double-sided "Nicole" record, pressed on  the same odd material. (Pic. 1). They appear to have used various coloured labels of this same design.               (My thanks to Norman Field for providing this label scan)

2. The second appeared in 1911 and used Dacapo masters (Pic 2).

3. The next was actually called New Empire and was a Edison Bell product (the purple one shown here).

4. The colourful one pictured here was a Piccadilly subsidiary, appearing briefly in 1931, with a catalogue running from E-1 to E-12.

5. Next there was a flexible record, similar to Filmophone in material (not seen and not shown here)

6. Finally another shellac, a subsidiary of Octacros, produced for Metropolitan Stores during 1936-37, with an E-100 catalogue series (the red one here).

Footnote:- I believe that the name "Empire Recored" was also used on a "paste-over" label in the WWI period, but I have no examples and no further information as to what was being sold off in this manner.



Encore This was a pre-WWI Beka product, pressed in Germany (where it was marketed under the name of "Veni-Vidi-Vici"). The record's feature was two titles each side, rather like the later "4 in 1" disc. Unlike "4 in 1", though, Encore still only played for the normal 3 minutes or so, so each title was only about half as long as usual.      
Era Originally a Beka product made in Germany prior to WWI with a very artistic colourful design. These date from about 1907 and were all single-sided and cost 2/-, although in his writings in "Hillandale News No. 231" Frank Andrews reports that both single and double sided versions of this label were issued, the double sided ones costing 3/-, with catalogue numbers matching the usual Beka label issues. This label is quite scarce, and I've never seen a double sided one of this design. Frank reports that they were never advertised in the trade journals of the time.

Era was a registered trade mark of William R. Petty, a watchmaker, of The Poplars, Bowes Rd, New Southgate, Middx, as from October 1907. He registered the name to cover talking machines and disc records, with the design shown on the label here as the trade mark. However, Frank was unable to find any link betweek Petty and those who were known to sell these records, which were The New Polyphon Supply Co, Barnet Samuel & Sons & John G Murdoch & Co. All in all, there is some mystery still behind this rare and early label.

Subsequently (in 1910), Beka became part of the Carl Lindström group, and with it the Era matrices. In March 1911, they issued a new Era label, not using Petty's trade mark, but with a new, simpler design incorporated the "£" ( 'L' for Lindström) symbol later associated in Britian with Parlophone (which was part of the Lindström group of companies). These were double-sided records, with the catalogue number still matching the parent Beka issue. (See second example).

Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for providing the first label photo. Thanks to Adrian Smith, I now have a colour image of the later Era Record label. As ever, digitising red labels is tricky, and I suspect it should be a darker red with gold printing.
Esperinst These records were manufactured in 1926 by Crystalate on behalf on The Esperanto Institute Ltd, to publicise the international language.  The example shown is a 10" record and it has no numbers on the label at all, and it appears to be one opf a 2-disc set.  The matrix number of the one shown here is 4431. The Crystalate ledgers show only two other sides which were for Esperanto at this period, 4430 & 4432. The fourth side was matrix 4400, an instrumental version of La Espero played by the Band of the Honorable Artillery Company.
These recordings would be acoustically made, as Crystalate hadn't yet adopted the new electrical recording system.

The label image has been send to me by Thomas Preece, and I have included the matrix number in the image as a guide.
Esquire A well-known jazz label from the post-WWII period, Esquire records first appeared in February 1948 and issued new recordings (sometimes pirated, I believe) of jazz bands of all then-current styles from Britain, America, Australia & France. British drummer Carlo Krahmer was the driving force behind the label, which made many recordings not issued initially on 78s but were made available later on vinyl LPs. Esquire records could be obtained from many jazz societies and dealers, the records cost 5/9 for 10" records and 7/3 for 12".

While Esquire concentrated mainly on jazz, there were other series. Thanks to Peter Adamson, I can show an image of one of the fairly scarce Esquire black labelled 12" classical series. These were expensive at 11/6 each!
Evangelical According to the label, Evangelical Recordings were located at Denison House,  296, Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW.1.

From the style of the label, I would say these records date from the mid-to-late 1950s.

Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for providing the label photo.
Excelda These were produced by Edison Bell from about 1912 onwards for Bornand Freres of Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate, London. 

Based on the known issues, it would appear that the catalogue ran from No. 301 to the 340s. They may even have all been issued in one lot. Certainly, judging by their scarcity, they were probably not on sale for very long.
 
Excelophone This was a British label marketed in Australia. The records all date from around WWI and were made for J. G. Murdoch & Co (London). Several companies were involved in providing the masters, including Edison Bell, Invicta/Guardsman and Pilot/Polyphon as well.  The example shown here is from Polyphon or Pilot.
Frank Andrews reports different series of catalogue numbers: a 2000- series for the Edison Bell ones, a 5000 and 8000 series for the Polyphons and a 3-digit catalogue number for the Invicta/Guardsman ones, though some of the latter have no catalogue numbers at all. These catalogue series sound very like the ones used on the source labels, but the few I have been able to check don't match this, so it is just a coincidence, it seems.

The basic design was similar for all, though some are believed to be just pasted over "Guardsman" records.    

My thanks to Derek Kell for providing the label scan.
Exo This is a "shop" label, sold by Moorhouse's of Padiham, Lancs. The style shown here is stencilled from a "Bell" record, but some issues were from Beka masters and usually sported a quite highly coloured label.
 

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