Tune in to new radio exhibition at the Cambridge Museum of Technology

The Cambridge Museum of Technology is to stage a temporary exhibition to commemorate the centenary of Pye radios and the BBC.

Pye was a Cambridge company started by William George Pye in 1896. Originally an instrument manufacturing company, Pye expanded into many fields and became particularly famous for its radios.

Bob Bates, from the Pye History Trust, said: “Pye was one of the founding technology companies in Cambridge. It started in 1896 as a start-up company in somebody’s garden shed, and proved to be one of the UK’s largest electronics companies by the 60s.

“In fact, it was Cambridge’s largest private employer in the 60s, but then it financially crashed and was taken over by Phillips Electronics, who then used parts of it but ultimately disbanded it. But it was a pioneer, particularly in radio and television and so forth.”

On the upcoming display, Bob added: “We’ve created a full exhibition of Pye, but we were recently approached by a private collector of radios, Mike Kemp, who has a large collection and he suggested he’d be prepared to loan these to the museum.”

Bob would love to hear from anyone willing to contribute to the exhibition, which is set to start in the autumn and run until spring 2023. He can be contacted at bobbates@katelan.co.uk. To learn more about the Cambridge Museum of Technology, go to museumoftechnology.com.

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