The company started life in London in 1832 as a business which manufactured watches and steel pens and distributed musical instruments wholesale. It was run by Henry Solomon whose father Jacob had come to London from Exeter. Henry sold the musical instrument part of the business to Barnett Samuel in 1861 and Barnett's son Nelson joined the business in 1869. In 1872 his eldest son joined the company and the firm became a huge musical concern selling every kind of instrument including harmoniums and zithers. It became Barnett Samuel & Sons Ltd. in 1901, and sometime in the early 1900's they started making their own banjos after Francis Beddard joined them. By 1911 the subsidiary company "John Grey and Sons" had formed and used the name as a trademark on its instruments. Earlier instruments had Grey and Sons Ltd as the trademark.

In 1928 Barnett Samuel & Sons was bought by British Equity Investment Co. Ltd. but did not have the right to use the title so it was renamed as the Decca Gramophone Co. Ltd. The company became the Decca Record Co. Ltd. ( Barnett Samuel & Sons patented and marketed the first portable gramaphone in 1914 - trade name "Decca" and it was hugely successful. In 1903 they stocked 100,000 records and 60 different talking machines). The instrument part of the company was contained in just 8 shares of the John Grey & Sons Ltd and these were bought by Rose, Morris & Co. Ltd. who made banjos up to and after the second world war. The company was bought by Grampian Holdings Ltd in 1960 and continued to produce cheap banjos labelled "John Grey". From 1967, the company started selling it's own products and just use the trademark "R.M" from Rose Morris. Rose-Morris are today a large musical department store.

The Barnett Samuel & Sons company also spawned British Music Strings Ltd (1918) and Boyd Ltd, later to become part of Associated Piano Co. Ltd (1927).