The company was founded 2 August 1901,[1] to make billiard balls and other items as well as gramophone records,[1] using a plastic formulation branded Crystalate, licensed from its American patent holder.
After merging with Sound Recording Co. Ltd. (exactly how and when remain unclear),[1] Crystalate Manufacturing became, in 1920, the third company (and the second British one) to operate the Imperial label,[1] and by the mid-1920s had four distribution depots in England and one each in Scotland and Ireland.
[1] On 30 January 1928, the company re-incorporated in Golden Green, Kent,[1] as Crystalate Gramophone Record Manufacturing Co. Ltd.[1] 1928 also saw Crystalate taking over West Hampstead Town Hall at 165 Broadhurst Gardens in London, and moving its recording studio there.
[2] It subsequently established affiliates in France and Germany, set up a new headquarters, Crystalate House, in London,[1] and bought a one-third interest in the American Record Corporation conglomerate in 1929.
[6] In November 1983 Crystalate bought Royal Worcester for £23 million in a hostile takeover in order to acquire Welwyn Electronics, selling the china and ceramics divisions to the London Rubber Company and Coors Porcelain Company the next year.