Then and Now: Radios first rented in Grantham in the 1930s

Radios were first rented to people in Grantham in the 1930s, writes Ruth Crook of Grantham Civic Society.

In 1935 White & Sentence on St Peter’s Hill advertised in the Grantham Journal that they had qualified radio engineers and were agents for Pye Radio Rentals.

They stated that you could ‘Rent the finest 1936 radio’ and that ‘Our new Pye Rental Services means absolutely guaranteed enjoyment from your radio. You have a choice of the latest 1936 models. 2/- weekly. The set becomes yours, or you can have a new model every year. There are no extras and no reservations’.

There was ‘Free Installation, Automatic Ownership, 4 year’s free service, maintenance and replacements’.

In 1943, there was a court case in the County Court, when a local lady had defaulted on her payments to Radio Rentals Ltd. The judge ordered that she returned the radio, valued at £11.15s. He said that under a normal hire purchase agreement, the lady would have been protected by the Hire Purchase Act, but the agreement with Radio Rentals was not covered by this, which was a different type of agreement, and contained a specific clause that if payments were not made, the radio had to be returned. The equivalent of £11.15s in 1943 is currently approximately £585.

Radio Rentals later offered rental televisions and eventually video recorders.