Linguaphone Institute Ltd.

Vinyl pressing plant facility in Slough, Berkshire owned by The Linguaphone Institute (Linguaphone) operating between c.1949 and 1986. May also appear as Linguaphone Custom Pressing. Originally the plant pressed records exclusively for the Linguaphone Institute. However, circa 1949, a chance set of events caused all this to change. Peter Newbrook, co-founder of Esquire, while waiting outside a corsetiere on Regent Street (where his wife was having a bra fitted) noticed a large stack of boxes filled with 78 RPM records outside the nearby Linguaphone Institute. This registered with Newbrook, and in the following days he contacted Linguaphone's then company secretary Mr. Ridz. He arranged a meeting with Ridz, who was to inform him that Linguaphone had their own record pressing facility on the Slough trading estate (although they did not have lacquer processing/plating facilities). Excited by this, Newbrook immediately offered Linguaphone their first ever commercial work for his Esquire label. They struck an initial deal for around 6 releases, with Esquire providing the metalwork and printed labels and Linguaphone doing the pressing. These were to become Linguaphone's first contract pressings. Linguaphone offered 12", 10" and 7" record pressing and cassette duplication. In 1986, the plant was sold to Adrian Owlett and Len Hawkes and became Adrenalin (4). Although the plant did not originally have metalwork processing facilities, this must have changed at some point as PAG is known to have worked there. Characteristic is a 25mm stamper ring for 7"s and 12"s/ LPs. The LP/12" labels can either be flat or dipped.