LIFE

1881 CENSUS (n.d., Barham, Kent......., London):
James PACKMAN (33y; b., Faversham, Kent) Police constable K.C.C. (Kent County Constabulary ?)
Matilda PACKMAN (34y; b. Faversham, Kent - d. ................)
children:
- James William (9y; b. Hoo)
- John (7y; b. Rainham)
- Percival James (6y ; b. Rainham)
- Alice Lucy (2y; b. Rainham)
- Walter (1y; b. Barham)

1901 CENSUS (n.d., Hammersmith, London):
John PACKMAN (27y; b. Rainham, Kent) electrician elect. app. (= apparatus/appliances)
Agnes PACKMAN (28y; Mellis, Suffolk)
- Reginald (1y; London)
- Percival (6m; London)
= Percival J. PACKMAN (25y; brother) electrician elect. app. (= apparatus/appliances)

1911 CENSUS (Islington, Highbury, 66 Hamilton Road N., London):
Percival James PACKMAN (35y; b. <1876>, Rainham, Kent) Talking Machine Record Recorder
Edith PACKMAN (30y ; b. <1881>, London W.C.)
- Percival Gilbert (2y; Highbury, London)
- Arthur James (2m; Highbury, London)

Home address in 1906: St Mary's Road, Canonbury.

“.. we now have the famous Musogram records made by that skilful expert Mr P. J. Packman. Indeed it was to see this gentleman that we paid our visit and we found him upstairs in the recording room, busily making arrangements for the arrival of one of the artists who was to make a few records.”
"In fact all three of the productions are excellent and reflect the greatest credit not only upon the singer but upon Mr Packman, who we may here mention was the very first to introduce the close-cut phono disc which enables a record to be made which will play for over six minutes, long enough to embrace the entire song without cutting.”
(from: ‘A fair record-maker: Grace Ivell’ (in Talking Machine News vol. 2 no. 17, April 1910, page 162)

Musogram record in Don Taylor’s The English 78 picture book (Hobart, Tasmania : Don Taylor, no date), p. 150:
“Mr Percy J. Packman was responsible for this unusual type of record. Technically it could be seen as a transitional stage between Neophone and Marathon, both of which he was involved with at different times. First appearing in 1909, the disc was vertical-cut .... Musograms seem to have vanished towards the end of 1910.”

"Musogram Limited has been established on the 5th June 1907 by Percy Packman, A. W. Cameron and others who had been associated with Neophone Limited."
(from: Nicole book by Michael Kinnear, p. 27)



Percival James PACKMAN (48y) musical recorder
SS “WALMER CASTLE”
Dep.: ......., Durban, SOUTH AFRICA
Mossel Bay-Algoa Bay [Port Elisabeth]-Cape Town-Madeira-East London
Packman embarked at Capetown.
Arr.: 31 Mar 1924, Southampton, ENGLAND

In British Phone Books:
1929-1930: 66 Hamilton Road, N.5, Canonbury, London
1932-1935: 69 Dunstan Road, N.W.11, London
1937-1939: 66 Hamilton Road, N.5, Canonbury, London

Director/recording expert of The Neophone Co. Ltd.
(see Kinnear's Indian Recordings, p. 40-41)

Pp. 49-51 of Manual of Analogue Sound Restoration Techniques by Peter Copeland (The British Library Sound Archive, 2008) online

In 1911 a British inventor, P. J. Packman, patented a new type of cutting stylus in which a cylindrical sapphire had its axis perpendicular to the wax, rather than substantially parallel to it. (Ref. 2). His aim was to cut deeper grooves. He wanted to pack more sound into a given space, and reasoned that if one used hill-and-dale recording, one would not have to leave space between the grooves for lateral modulation. By combining hill-and-dale recording with a finer groove-pitch and the technique of an abrasive record to grind a steel needle, he hoped to make inexpensive long-playing disc records; a couple of hundred were actually published under the tradename “Marathon.” They were not a success; however, the principle of Packman’s cutter was gradually adopted by the rest of the sound recording industry.
(source: website Hifi Museum - Technik, Wissen und Historie: Sound Restoration, Teil 4)

MARATHON (long-playing record 1912-1915) see internet

last residence: 66 Hamilton Park, Highbury, London