Music Masters Radio Co.
1932 – Riverview Terrace, Auchenflower, Brisbane
1933 – Elizabeth Street Brisbane
1937 – Factory, Stanley Street, South Brisbane
1939 – Showrooms, 209 Queen Street Brisbane

Brand: Music Masters

Music Masters Radio Co. in Brisbane was very well known in Queensland and was that state's largest manufacturer. Their cabinets were often elaborate and well crafted. They sold radios and radiograms with the names of well known composers including Wagner, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Liszt.

According to a 1948 advert Music Masters had sold over 50000 radios by that time. Music Masters Radio Co. also manufacured and installed public address systems and were service agents for Pyrox wire recorders and 16 mm projectors.

A Hale & Sons, 251 Montague Street South Brisbane manufactured cabinets for Radio Masters products.

 

Music Masters began in 1932 in a small way when William Thomas Kelly, Jim Grant (from Stromberg Carlson Sydney) and two helpers began manufacturing radios in the laundry under the boarding house where Kelly lived. The firm of "The Music Masters Radio Company" was registered in 1933 in Riverview Terrace Auchenflower (an inner suburb of Brisbane) near Kelly's original address.

At the end of 1933 the factory was moved to the first floor of the "Wildridge & Sinclair" warehouse building in Elizabeth Street in central Brisbane. A sales showroom was opened in the Blocksidge & Ferguson building in nearby Adelaid Street. The company employed 10 staff at this time.

In 1936 the big southern manufacturers stopped supplying Music Masters with parts in an effort to eliminate competition forcing the factory to source components from overseas. This continued for a year untill the Australian suppliers relented. In 1937 production was moved to a 1400 m2 factory occupying half a building in Stanley St South Brisbane. By the late 40s the whole building was being utilized. 

During 1939 they opened a magnificent showroom in Tattersall's Arcade, Queen Street, which included stunning "ultra-modern" curved glass fronts with "internal veneering done in bean and walnut, camphor-laurel heart and silky oak", luxurious thick carpet, and beautiful lighting which hung from the ceiling on chromium shafts.

Following the retirement of Jim Grant and the death of W. T. Kelly in 1956 production started to decline. The company was sold to H.G.Palmers in 1958 when it became Music Masters Pty Ltd. Production was greatly reduced by this time, the company mainly selling and servicing H.G.Palmer branded radios and TVs. H.G.Palmers went into receivership in 1965 and Music Masters was last listed in the phone book in 1968.