Patrick Saul

Anthony Patrick Hodgins Saul OBE (15 October 1913, Dover – 9 May 1999, London) was an English sound archivist.

Known as Patrick Saul,^[1] he was the founder of the British Institute of Recorded Sound,^[2] which later became the British Library Sound Archive. His own favourite recording^[1] in the archive he created was of the mating call of the haddock.^[3]

Patrick Saul was created OBE in 1971.^[1] When he retired in 1978, Lord Boyle of Handsworth, who was Financial Secretary to the Treasury when the Archive received government funding in the early 1960s, described Patrick Saul's career as one of ‘quite exceptional modesty and humility on the one side and ruthless determination on the other.’^[1]

References

1. "Patrick Saul (1913–1999)" (PDF). Playback, the bulletin of the British Library Sound Archive; p. 6. Spring 2000. One afternoon in 1930 a young music-lover went into the London gramophone shop, Cranbourn Street, run by Mr Wilfrid Van Wyck and Mr W. Rimington, and asked for Dohnányi’s Violin Sonata in the arrangement by Lionel Tertis. To his amazement he was told that the record was ‘out of print’; it had been deleted. So he walked on to the British Museum determined to hear the recording at least, even if he couldn’t buy it. But he was told that there were no gramophone records at all at the British Museum… ISSN 0952-2360
2. Crispin Jewitt (19 July 1999). "Patrick Saul: A life spent preserving sound". The Guardian. He faced an uphill struggle, public authorities were sceptical and it was not until 1955 that sufficient money had been raised to finance premises in Russell Square, leased by the British Museum trustees. Sir Adrian Boult and Dame Myra Hess were among the eminent musicians to help what was then the British Institute Of Recorded Sound, and EMI and Decca provided their new recordings.
3. British Library Sound Archive (26 January 2007). "What does the mating call of a Haddock sound like?". News release for wildlife recordings.