Columbia / EMI Records, Homebush

EMI (Australia) Limited (and predecessors) pressing plant, active from 1926 to 1992. In the 1970s through to its demise, it was named EMIDISC.

On the 18th of January 1926, The Gramophone Co. Ltd. of England opened a 40,000 square foot manufacturing plant at Erskineville in Sydney, with 400 staff. On 14 October 1926, its competitor the Columbia Graphophone Company Ltd. opened a new 50,000 square foot plant at Homebush, Sydney, with 350 staff in a building originally constructed in 1921 by Gold’s Hosiery Mills Ltd. When the two companies were brought together in March 1931 under the global EMI merger, manufacturing was consolidated at Homebush in July of that year.

In 1935, a second storey addition to the factory, considerably expanding its production capacities with the first Australian-made radio receivers being delivered in 1936. It also offered a custom manufacturing service, some of which were branded EMI Custom Records. For a full history of that service please see that page.

Over the next five decades, the plant also manufactured other electronic consumer goods, including television sets, car radios, stereograms, magnetic tapes, tape recorders, a wide range of electronic and television studio equipment and household appliances. In 1967, it had a workforce of over 2000, although that number fell when EMI (Australia) Ltd moved out of consumer electronics in the 1980s (after the Thorn purchase). From 1987, it also manufactured vinyl for the New Zealand market after EMI New Zealand closed its plant.

The Homebush plant closed in November 1990 when vinyl and cassette production was terminated. EMI Australia moved its production to DATA (Digital Audio Technologies Australia), a state-of-the-art compact disc plant as a t venture with Warner Music.