Pye Ltd was an electronics company founded in 1896 in Cambridge, England, as a manufacturer of scientific instruments. The company merged with EKCO in 1960. Philips of the Netherlands acquired a majority shareholding in 1967, and later gained full ownership.
In 1924, Harold Pye designed the first successful W G Pye receivers; the 720, 730 and 740 series, again the centre number standing for the number of valves. Very high quality transformers were manufactured for this series and were available to the radio enthusiast.
W. G. Pye & Co. chose to enter the field by making laboratory equipment for teaching schoolboys and undergraduates the rudiments of wireless.
Pye was a market leader in domestic goods, such as radio and television, and also in industrial products including two-way radio, television transmitters, scientific instruments and many other fields.
Fictional characters Jerry Pye and Ginger Pye, a boy and a dog in Ginger Pye, a 1951 children's novel by Eleanor Estes the protagonist of Mr Pye, a 1953 novel by Mervyn Peake Pye, a fictional owl in the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series
Manufacturers and suppliers of domestic electronic and electrical products using the brand names Pye, PAM, Pamphonic, Invicta Radio, L. G. Hawkins and later using EKCO, Dynatron and EKCO-Hawkins.
From WG Pye beginning the company in 1896 in his garden shed, through a vital support of the country during both World Wars, to a global technology company of up to 30,000 employees.