THE GREAT MULLARD MAGIC BLOG — STANLEY MULLARD

Some of my readers will remember my earlier blog where I recounted Stanley Mullard's passion for horticulture.   I have been both pleased and honoured to have been contacted by a couple of people who knew him and told their story, firstly there was Harry from Australia and now Ray from Manchester. Here, Ray goes on to tell his story of meeting Stanley Mullard. from when during the early 50s Ray was a Sales Correspondence Clerk in the Plastics Division of Imperial Chemical Industries  (ICI Ltd). "Our office was based in Gloucester House on the corner of Old Park Lane and Piccadilly. Amongst other...

Well, the war was over and 1946 dawned. America had cut off Lend-Lease money to the UK and materials for home and export production were in short supply. There existed a massive surfeit of military surplus electronics which was growing at an alarming rate as war supplies were withdrawn from various theatres of operation. At this time, the great military surplus gravy train was about to commence where not only radio equipment and componentry were available for knockdown prices but military vehicles and even aircraft – and ex RAF pilots to fly them – typically those that did not possess...

As the new scion of Mullard, I have just received by e-mail a question as to whether or not SR Mullard was an unpleasant man to work with. Many had commented that Stanley was a ‘rough diamond’ with little formal education. Most of his bad press seems to stem from the contretemps between himself and CO Stanley in the days before CO was the owner of WG Pye. At this time, Mullard was looking for sales expansion and CO Stanley as the charismatic owner of the marketing agency ARKS, hit upon a grand scheme whereby a new magazine entitled Radio...

The unreliable 'split-pin' PM series were swiftly replaced by valves having a new improved base. The base was characterized by having the same ebonite base but the inset pins were now tubular, having two slots in orthogonal configuration with electrode lead arrangements..outs being passed up the pin centre and connected by soldering at the tips. The bases now had a paint filled groove also labeled ‘A’ to denote the anode connection adjacent to the anode pin – This paint was applied by deft fingered young ladies but the process was deemed too labour intensive and so was discontinued in 1928,...

 Well, we are not going to discuss ‘Yus my dear’ Arthur Mullard but the dashing, First World War Captain Stanley R. Mullard who worked on the production of bright emitter thermionic valves for the Admiralty and a clever chap he was too holding six patents jointly with the Admiralty. Shortly after the end of the war during 1919, he left the Admiralty joining the Z Electric Lamp Co as their managing director. By mutual arrangement, valves were manufactured using Stanley’s patented technology and sold principally to the Admiralty and Post Office under the S.R. Mullard brand.When the Z Electric Lamp...