The Austral Record

The Austral Record was produced by World Record (Australia) Pty Ltd (also known as Wocord) which was established in Melbourne, Australia in 1924. The label was produced during 1925. They used American Masters, mainly Emerson, and omitted the original artists from the label. This company was owned by the eccentric inventor Noel Pemberton-Billing, who had previously set up the World Record Company in the UK during 1922 to exploit his "long-playing" record patents. When World Record failed Pemberton-Billing came to Australia in late 1923 and set up another record company. This time the records were not "long-playing" but were of conventional size and duration. However, they did use another of Pemberton-Billings inventions in that they were standard shellac pressings and instead a thin layer of shellac was placed on a thick cardboard base. This meant that the records were an early yype of "unbreakable" disc, but the disadvantage was that the heavy tone arms and steel needles used at this time soon wore through the thin veneer of shellac and began to tear into the cardboard layer underneath. As a result the records quickly became unplayable, and very few examples can be found today without at least some minor groove damage of this type. Inevitably, this new Pemberton-Billing venture did not survive very long and seems to have collapsed in early 1926.