By Tony Locantro
The tenor Edward Lloyd (1845–1927) had a distinguished career for some 30 years as a leading oratorio and concert singer and was considered by some to be the foremost tenor exponent of that genre during the last quarter of the 19th century. He retired in December 1900, a few months after singing the lead in the disastrous premier of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in Birmingham, at which the chorus and orchestra were under-rehearsed and Lloyd himself was not in good voice. But the Gramophone Company coaxed him into the recording studio in 1904 and eventually made some 34 titles up to 1908, and one more in 1911 after he emerged from retirement to sing at the coronation of King George V.
In February 1907 he ceremonially cut the first sod at the site of the factory of The Gramophone Company at Hayes, Middlesex.
Thank you to our friends at the EMI Archive Trust in providing these fine images.
Sound Of The Hound 
My Edward Lloyd spade story. During the time I supervised the EMI archive, I had a visit from an auctioneer saying he had a silver spade which had been submitted for auction and he thought the archive might be interested as it had engraving that linked it with the company. At the time I had no knowledge of it or its history, but subsequently we bought it for an undisclosed sum, and I brought it home in my car, to be delivered to Hayes the following morning. That morning I woke to find my car had been burgled in my front drive within sight of my bedroom window. The thief had carefully removed window, then removed the internal light bulbs and, equally carefully, dismantled CD player and its 6-CD cartridge, leaving the window on the ground……..and the priceless spade untouched inside the car!!
It was subsequently used by Roberto Alagna and his then wife Angeli Ghiorghiou to dig the first sod of the new, and current Archive building in Dawley Road.
End of story!