Bush (electronics brand)

Bush is a British consumer electronics brand owned by Sainsbury's via its subsidiary Argos, both of which exclusively sell Bush products. In Australia and New Zealand, the Bush brand is owned and used separately by Harvard International.

The brand has existed since the 1930s and originated as a London-based company named Bush Radio.

Bush Radio was one of the most famous manufacturers of early British radio receivers in the mid 20th century. The original company became defunct in 1962 when it merged with Murphy Radio, but the Bush brand name survives as a private label brand for budget electronics, becoming the most popular brand in the UK for smaller-size TVs in the 1990s and has since also become popular for products such as smart TVs, tablets and white goods as of 2015.

The company was founded in 1932 as Bush Radio from the remains of the Graham Amplion company, which had made horn loudspeakers as a subsidiary of the Gaumont British Picture Corporation. The brand name comes from Gaumont's Shepherd's Bush studios. Bush Radio Ltd expanded rapidly moving to a new factory at Power Road, Chiswick in 1936.

Bush became part of the Rank empire in 1945 when it was acquired by Cinema-Television, a subsidiary of Gaumont-British. A brand new factory was opened at Ernesettle, Plymouth in 1949. In 1946 the DAC90, designed by Frank Middleditch, featured in the V&A exhibition Britain Can Make It. The original model in black became very popular and was succeeded by the DAC90A in other colours, and export models with dials in different languages.

In 1950 the DAC10 radios were launched, along with the distinctive TV22 television.

The Bush TR82 transistor radio, designed by Ogle Design, and launched in 1959, is regarded as an icon of early radio design. Although the first radio to use the Ogle cabinet design was actually the MB60, a battery/mains valve set from 1957 to 1959.

The original Bush Radio company merged with Murphy Radio on 4 June 1962, and a new company was formed called Rank Bush Murphy Ltd. In 1978, Rank Bush Murphy was sold to British conglomerate Great Universal Stores.