The Best of Murphy Cabinet Design 1930 to 1950 - Murphy Radio

FOREWORD
As a school leaver aged 15, I began work in November 1940 at
Murphy Radio as a trainee in the design office in Bridge Road,
Welwyn Garden City. During the war I worked on receivers and
other electronic equipment for the military. In 1950, I began working
for Eden Minns, designing for the new post-war products. I
continued to work in cabinet and graphic design for Murphy until
1970, although in 1962 the company had been taken over by Rank-
Bush.
This catalogue is a tribute to the design work for Murphy by R. D.
Russell and Eden Minns from 1930 to 1950. During this unique
period they brought together an integration of high quality furniture
design and craft techniques with as near mass–production as was
possible at the time.
The majority of the images of the sets are taken from contemporary
photographic glass plates which were rescued from a pile of scrap
discarded by the firm in 1962. The text and other images (for which
we had no plates) are derived from a combination of contemporary
Murphy sales literature and Murphy News articles plus two modern
images of surviving sets.
I would like to thank Derek Dewey-Leader for scanning the glass
plates and my son Nigel Reeve for producing this electronic
catalogue. Thanks also to the staff of Mill Green Museum who
allowed us access to their Murphy collection and David Grant who
kindly contributed several images, a good deal of additional
information and very helpful peer review during the project.
© James Reeve
September 2007
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