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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Guglielmo Marconi
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(1874–1937)
Italian pioneer of radio telegraphy who based his career and his company in Britain. He began experimenting at his home near Bologna in 1895 and was soon able to send a radio signal over a distance greater than a mile. Finding little support for his ideas in Italy, he came to London in 1896 and filed his first patent in June of that year. He soon sent a radio signal 14km/9m across the Bristol channel, and in 1899 he achieved several striking successes: he signalled 50km/31m from England to France; British battleships communicated with his equipment at a distance of 121km/75m; and, most sensational from the public's point of view, reports were sent from sea to New York on the progress of the America's Cup.
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His greatest single triumph came in 1901 when he received in Newfoundland the first transatlantic radio message, transmitted from his equipment on the coast of the *Lizard in Cornwall. He continued to be in the forefront of experiment, particularly in short-wave radio, and the company he founded in Britain (trading as Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company from 1900) grew into an international concern. It launched in February 1922 the first radio station, broadcasting from its 2MT studio near Chelmsford. This was followed by a London radio station, transmitting as 2LO, which later in 1922 became the first studio of the *BBC. The Marconi company was much in the news in 1990 when four of its executives were charged with making excessive profits on defence contracts, but the prosecution case collapsed after the trial had run for six weeks.
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