John Logie Baird changed the world
When thwarted by attempts to get something as simple as drainage connection made to our lower ground floor, I focus on the television mast on the horizon. Its output, or in our case lack of it, is testament to what can be achieved with sheer will and determination. John Logie Baird arrived in Hastings 90 years ago after a failed business attempt at making jam in the Caribbean and set about inventing the telly in East Sussex.
His old school friend, Guy Robertson, otherwise known as ‘Mephy’ was already living here and the two Scottish pals shared lodgings at 21 Linton Crescent – there is now a blue plaque outside the bay-fronted Victorian house.
Incredibly, Baird had already experimented with the idea of visual transmission while still a schoolboy, but it was on a long walk over the cliffs to Fairlight Glen that he was truly inspired to embrace his vision.
Unlike my husband Mark, Baird’s friend Mephy didn’t let the small issue of a seemingly bonkers idea put him off and encouraged him to place an advert in The Times, calling for help in making a working model of what was then described as the Seeing Wireless. As a result, the Chief Research Engineer at the BBC came down and gave him some equipment.
He was also contacted by a cinema owner called Will Day and they formed a partnership for the fi rst patent. In January 1924, he managed to broadcast the first-ever shadowy images (a grainy Maltese Cross) to some startled residents and the incident was reported in the Daily News, prompting his own father, a retired Presbyterian minister, to post him £50.
As their experiments grew, so did the need for extra space, so the inventive pair rented a workshop above number 8 Queen’s Arcade and it was from here that he achieved his greatest breakthroughs. It was also here that he almost met his maker, when he was hurled across the floor by a 1,200 volt surge, and was found, with burnt hands, amid a pile of damaged apparatus. Not an experimentalist, his landlord, Mr Tree, promptly evicted him.
His fortune was eventually made in London, but Baird never forgot Hastings and on a return visit he said: ‘I owe a lot to your air and sunshine.’ The Hastings Museum now houses all the letters he wrote about his endeavours, their purchase made possible by Went Tree Trust; established, ironically, by Baird’s reluctant former landlord.
Next week: Forget Christmas lights, any lights will do.
His old school friend, Guy Robertson, otherwise known as ‘Mephy’ was already living here and the two Scottish pals shared lodgings at 21 Linton Crescent – there is now a blue plaque outside the bay-fronted Victorian house.
Incredibly, Baird had already experimented with the idea of visual transmission while still a schoolboy, but it was on a long walk over the cliffs to Fairlight Glen that he was truly inspired to embrace his vision.
Unlike my husband Mark, Baird’s friend Mephy didn’t let the small issue of a seemingly bonkers idea put him off and encouraged him to place an advert in The Times, calling for help in making a working model of what was then described as the Seeing Wireless. As a result, the Chief Research Engineer at the BBC came down and gave him some equipment.
He was also contacted by a cinema owner called Will Day and they formed a partnership for the fi rst patent. In January 1924, he managed to broadcast the first-ever shadowy images (a grainy Maltese Cross) to some startled residents and the incident was reported in the Daily News, prompting his own father, a retired Presbyterian minister, to post him £50.
As their experiments grew, so did the need for extra space, so the inventive pair rented a workshop above number 8 Queen’s Arcade and it was from here that he achieved his greatest breakthroughs. It was also here that he almost met his maker, when he was hurled across the floor by a 1,200 volt surge, and was found, with burnt hands, amid a pile of damaged apparatus. Not an experimentalist, his landlord, Mr Tree, promptly evicted him.
His fortune was eventually made in London, but Baird never forgot Hastings and on a return visit he said: ‘I owe a lot to your air and sunshine.’ The Hastings Museum now houses all the letters he wrote about his endeavours, their purchase made possible by Went Tree Trust; established, ironically, by Baird’s reluctant former landlord.
Next week: Forget Christmas lights, any lights will do.