Hi-Fi Sparton Console Television

Datec. 1960

Credit LineGift of Rosie Sura, St. Thomas, Ontario, 2003

Object number2003.020.001

Label TextSparton arrived in London in 1930 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of an American firm, the Sparks-Worthington Company (hence Spar-ton). It took over the former Sherlock-Manning piano factory on Elm Street and began building radios and refrigerators. By the 1960s, the company was producing a full range of entertainment products, including televisions, and was also pressing records. Beginning in the 1960s, Sparton began to build sensing devices for the Navy. The Sonorbuoy became one of its biggest products. Dropped from an aircraft, it released a transmitter and a sensor used to detect the presence of submarines. Since the end of the Cold War, the company has again repositioned itself and now one of its chief products is the expendable bathythermograph (XBT), a device that measures water temperature and depth and sends back the data through a wire. It is used by fishing fleets. This circa 1960 Sparton console illustrates that consumers found a time and a place for different forms of home entertainment. It includes both a television and a hi-fi record player. A substantial piece of furniture, this console would have been the centrepiece of the living room. It would also have been the centrepiece of the family circle.

NameTelevision, Console