About the Company
Boosey & Hawkes — Overview
Company: Boosey & Hawkes Ltd
Country: United Kingdom
Founded: 1930 (merger of Boosey & Company and Hawkes & Son)
Best Known For: Musical instrument manufacturing and music publishing (especially classical)
Boosey & Hawkes is not primarily known as a manufacturer of reel‑to‑reel tape decks in the way that Akai, TEAC, Revox, or Bang & Olufsen were. Its historical core business was brass and woodwind instruments, and later music publishing; the company’s reel‑to‑reel activity appears to have been limited and incidental rather than a main product line.
Magnetic Recording Products Associated with Boosey & Hawkes
Wire Recorders in the 1940s
Boosey & Hawkes did produce magnetic recording devices — but these were wire recorders, not conventional tape decks.
Examples include early portable wire recorders such as the Boosey & Hawkes wire recorder from 1949, which used steel wire rather than tape and was primarily designed for speech and field recording.
One known model is the Deluxe Reporter WIR202, a portable wire recorder, not an open‑reel tape recorder.
Wire recording predated mainstream tape and was a separate magnetic medium in the 1940s; by the early 1950s, tape quickly supplanted wire in most audio markets.
Reel‑to‑Reel Tape Deck Attribution
Some tape recorder brand lists and enthusiast catalogs include Boosey & Hawkes as a name under reel‑to‑reel brands, but no detailed production history, model catalogs, or documented tape deck models are readily available or verified.
This suggests that if Boosey & Hawkes did market any reel‑to‑reel tape recorders, they were very limited, obscure, or possibly badge‑engineered products rather than a sustained manufacturing line.
In many cases with small or obscure brands from the early magnetic recording era, large music firms contracted or rebadged tape mechanisms from other manufacturers rather than building their own transport and electronics. There’s no solid evidence that Boosey & Hawkes engineered tape recorder mechanics in house.
Why the Documentation Is Sparse
Boosey & Hawkes has a long and well‑documented history as a music publisher and instrument maker, but its involvement with magnetic‑recording hardware appears to be marginal and not the company’s focus:
The company’s major archives document instrument manufacturing and music publishing, not audio electronics.
Surviving reference material on tape recorders (e.g., reel‑to‑reel collector databases) list the brand but do not provide models, dates, or company catalogs, indicating that any tape‑recorder production was very limited or possibly licensed/contracted.
Works on British domestic audio history rarely mention Boosey & Hawkes outside of brass and woodwind instruments and publishing; the magnetic recorder references are mostly side notes (e.g., wire recorder listings).