Westminster

Westminster were not actually a manufacturer of radio receivers, in fact Westminster was a brand name used for radios sold by the Curry's chain of radio retailers. Although Curry's sold radios by other established "big name" manufacturers, retailing Westminster branded receivers enabled Curry's to keep some of the manufacturing profit that would otherwise have gone to the actual manufacturer. Of course this practice is still much in evidence today. It is perhaps a sad reflection that nowadays the "own-brand" names consist of the likes of "Saisho" and "Matsui", brands obviously intended to suggest a product of Japanese origin. Of course, in 1946, directly after WWII where Japan had been the enemy of Britain, trying to sell products with Japanese connotations would have resulted in zero sales. In those days people were proud to "buy British" - and there is few more British names than "Westminster". 

The actual manufacture of the receivers was out-sourced to other manufacturers, most notably Plessey. Curry's first used the brand name in 1925. The receiver shown is the ZU627 from about 1947, and is housed in a large all bakelite cabinet. It is quite well specified with three wavebands and magic eye, and is able to operate from AC or DC mains. Valve line-up is KTW61, DH63, KT33C, X61M, U31, Y63, 304 Barretter. As the radio is a "Universal" receiver, the chassis is likely to be live, hence the paxolin plate running the length of the chassis at the rear.  The barretter may be seen at the left of the chassis, together with a metal heat shroud to direct heat out of the ventilation slots in the cabinet rear panel.

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