In February, Saun Farrelly entertained us with the story of Guglielmo Marconi. He was born in Italy, in 1874, to an Italian father and an Irish mother - his mother was Annie Jameson whose family owned the Jameson Whiskey Distillery. He was educated privately at Bologna, Florence and Leghorn and took a keen interest in physical and electrical science, and the works of Michael Faraday Heinrich Hertz had earlier discovered that electromagnetic waves existed in the air and that these could be detected over short distances. Marconi took inspiration from the work of Hertz, and carried out a series of practical experiments in wireless telegraphy in Italy, sending wireless signals over a distance of one and a half miles using a coherer. In 1896 Marconi took his apparatus to England where he was introduced to William Preece, Engineer-in-Chief of the Post Office, and later that year was granted the world’s first patent for a system of wireless telegraphy. He demonstrated his system successfully in London, on Salisbury Plain and across the Bristol Channel, and in July 1897 formed The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company Limited (re-named Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Co.). In 1899 he established wireless communication across the English Channel. Many scientists were working in the same field but it was Marconi who realized the potential of the discovery which led him to take out Patents for various transmitting systems, sending the f irst wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St. John’s, Newfoundland, a distance of 2100 miles. Marconi as a young man. (continued) 14 In 1918, Marconi sent the first signal from England to Australia, which highlighted the scores of achievements during his lifetime, the greatest of which was the 'wireless' distress signals which led to the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives at sea, notably the ‘Titanic Disaster’. The technology also led to the arrest of Dr Crippin (for the murder of his wife) on arriving in America. Marconi received many honours and several honorary degrees and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics (1909) for the development of wireless telegraphy. He was married twice, having 3 children and died in 1937. 

Next Meetings: On March 4th our topic will be The activities of the Staffordshire Catholics after the Restoration, and on the April 1st the subject of our talk will be The Klondyke Gold Rush. 

John Egginton