IEE SCIENCE, EDUCATION & TECHNOLOGY DIVISION: CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS

Seeing by electricityProf. R.W. Burns, B.Sc, M.Sc, Ph.D., F.R.S.A., C.Eng., F.I.E.E.,

C.Phys., M.lnst.P.

Indexing terms: Television, History

Abstract: About 50 years ago, during the year 1935, decisions were taken which led to the establishment, in theUK, of the world's first, public, regular, high-definition, all-electronic television system. The first suggestion fortransmitting images (of printed texts) from one place to another was made by Bain in 1843. SubsequentlyBakewell (1848), Caselli (1862), Meyer (1869), d'Arlincourt (1872) and others devised methods which enabledimages of maps, diagrams, messages and sketches to be sent from one place to another. However the earlycommercial ventures were not a success. The discovery in 1873 of the photoconductive effect of selenium led tonumerous suggestions for 'seeing by electricity' but the first demonstration of rudimentary television was notgiven until over 50 years later when Baird, in 1925, succeeded in transmitting and receiving low-definitionimages. In both the UK and the USA, particularly, various aspects of low-definition television were demon-strated, principally by Baird and Bell Laboratories. By the late 1920s it was evident that such television couldnot give rise to a generally acceptable television service. From c.1930, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA)and Electric and Musical Industries (EMI) undertook extensive investigations on all-electronic televisionsystems. The paper outlines some of the factors which led to the birth of the British 405-line television station atAlexandra Palace in 1936.

1 Introduction

On 2nd November 1936 the world's, first, public, regular,high-definition television service was inaugurated at Alex-andra Palace, London.

The decision to establish the service was made by Par-liament following the submission to it of the report of theTelevision Committee. This Committee was constituted inMay 1934 'to consider the development of television andto advise the Postmaster General on the relative merits ofthe several systems and on the conditions—technical,financial, and general—under which any public service oftelevision should be provided'.

The Committee was chaired by Lord Selsdon, a formerPostmaster General, and comprised Colonel A.S. Angwinand Mr. F.W. Phillips of the General Post Office, Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Carpendale of the BBC, Mr. O.F.Brown of the Department of Scientific and IndustrialResearch and Sir John Cadman of the Anglo-Persian oilCompany.

Lord Selsdon and his colleagues worked with com-mendable speed and tendered their recommendations, atotal of seventeen, to the Postmaster General, the Right-Honorable Sir Kingsley Wood, on 14th January 1935.During their work the Committee had examined thirtyeight witnesses, had received numerous written statementsfrom various sources regarding television and had visitedGermany and the USA to investigate television develop-ments in those countries.

The principal conclusion and recommendation of theCommittee was that 'high-definition television had reachedsuch a standard of development as to justify the first stepsbeing taken towards the early establishment of a publictelevision service of this type'.

Marconi-EMI Television Co. Ltd. and Baird TelevisionCo. were the two companies who were invited to submittenders for studio and transmitting equipment, and for a

Paper 4166A, delivered before the IEE Science, Education & Technology Divisionon the 17th October 1985

Prof. Burns is with the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Schoolof Engineering, Trent Polytechnic Nottingham, Burton Street, Nottingham NG14BU, United Kingdom

IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 133, Pt. A, No. I, JANUARY 1986

short period from 2nd November 1936 to 13th February1937 both companies transmitted television programmes,on an alternate basis from the London Station. Subse-quently, until the commencement of hostilities in 1939,only Marconi-EMI equipment was in operation. Thenon the 2nd September 1939 the London Station closeddown.

The founding of the high-definition service was aremarkable achievement for, as late as 1931, merely low-definition systems operating on a 30-line or 60-line stan-dard were available, anywhere, for public use and the firstdemonstration of rudimentary television had been given byBaird only five years previously on 26th January 1926.

Fig. 1 Marconi-EMI television outside broadcasting unit, 1937

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But, while rapid progress had been made from 1931 to1935/36, approximately 50 years had elapsed between theadvancement of the first notions for a 'distant vision'scheme and the realisation of a crude practical system in1925/26. Many ideas had been put forward following Wil-loughby Smith's discovery in 1873 of the photoconductiveproperty of selenium, and during this period the principlesof scanning, as advanced by Nipkow (1884), Weiller (1889),Brillouin (1891) and others, had been described and werewell understood. In addition, from 1843 to 1873 manyschemes had been promoted for transmitting by electricalmeans diagrams, written messages and sketches from oneplace to another. In some cases, commercial ventures hadbeen introduced prior to 1873 to capitalise on the initia-tives and ideas of inventors who were keen to advance thescience and technology of sending visual information.Prior to c.1900 these ventures had come to nought, butmuch had been learnt about the requirements for synchro-nising means in a transmitter-receiver facsimile system,and this knowledge was to be of benefit in the develop-ment of 'distant vision'.

This paper attempts to discern the factors which led tohigh-definition television being developed in several coun-tries in the 1930s, but, more particularly, in the UK.

2 Historical Background [1]

2.1 Alexander BainThe first proposal for transmitting facsimiles electrically

from one place to another was contained in a Britishpatent dated 27th November 1843. In this Bain putforward seven different ideas for developments in electrictelegraphy: the sixth related to his 'improvements fortaking copies of surfaces, for instance the surfaces of prin-ters' type, at distant places'.

Bain's inventions were well based and eminently practi-cable for the period during which he lived. Highton men-tions that Bain's telegraph was one of the three mostcommonly employed in America about 1850, coming afterthat of Morse in general use, although in rapidity of sig-nalling it was the fastest. The Times, in a report of one ofBain's printing telegraphs, described Bain as a 'most inge-nious and meritorious inventor of a very novel and effica-cious instrument'. There is no doubt that Bain's 1843thoughts on facsimile transmission influenced many laterinventors, and his proposals for reproducing transmittedimages and for synchronising the transmitter and receiverwere basically those which were utilised as late as 1928 by,for example, Thorne-Baker and Fulton in their Fultographmachine [2].

Figs. 2 and 3 show the sending and receiving arrange-ment Bain put forward in his 1843 patent. At the transmit-ter, the metal frame was filled with short insulated wires,parallel to each other and at right angles to the plane ofthe frame, so that they made contact with the raisedsurface of the metal type on one side and to a movingstylus, attached to a pendulum, on the other. Thus as thestylus moved across the frame an electric circuit containingthe stylus, frame and type was continually being made andbroken according to the arrangement of the type. Essen-tially, the oscillatory motion of the pendulum combinedwith the vertical controlled motion of the metal frame tocause the stylus to scan, indirectly, the surface of the type.

The transmitting and receiving instruments, which weresimilar in construction, were synchronised by arrangingthat the two pendulums actuated an electric circuit so thatif one preceded the other by a slight amount in its swingit was held until the other had reached the same position,

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when both then started a new stroke. The two pendulumswere thus the basic synchronisers of the system, an essen-tial feature of any facsimile scheme.

pendulum

current-actuatedrelease

Fig. 2 Bain's apparatus as shown in British patent 9745, dated 27thNovember 1843

At the receiver two thicknesses of damp paper, pre-viously saturated with a solution composed of equal partsof prussiate of potash and nitrate of soda, were pressed bya smooth metal plate into contact with the ends of theparallel wires which filled the frame, as in the transmittingframe. By chemical action it was intended that the makingand breaking of the current in the system should discolourthe paper at the receiver, and so reproduce a copy of theoriginal surface.

Such then was Bain's invention: it did not contain anyradically new discovery or even new electrical principle,other than that of scanning a plane surface, but was basedon a sensible application of the technology available at thetime to a solution of a new problem. His proposals rep-resented a natural development of the science of electrictechnology and were made apparently realistic by the

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advances which had occurred previously in this field. Thus,his use of electrochemical marking followed the practicewhich had been put forward in a patent, in 1838, byEdward Davy for a chemically marking telegraph which

M One

amen*-actuated» release

battery

earth

Fig. 3 Scanning motions of parts of transmitting and receivingequipments of Bain's systemThese were to have been synchronised by means of interactive pendulums.

utilised a fabric moistened with a solution of hydriodate ofpotash and muriate of lime.

The discolouration of certain chemically treated paperswas not new, for in 1800 a Mr. Cruickshanks of Woolwichhad noticed that the colour of litmus paper was changedby 'the galvanic current'. Cruickshanks's discovery wasmade while he was repeating and extending the experi-ments on electrolysis which had been initiated by Nichol-son and Carlisle in the same year as Volta's discovery ofthe voltaic pile. Following this observation, much workwas undertaken on electrolysis by various workers, culmi-nating in the great work of Faraday in 1834. Davy's,Bain's and later Bakewell's use of this effect really rep-resented an extension of the employment of the electrolyticcell, although in a different form, which Soemmering hadused in 1809 as a detector of electricity.

The other feature of Bain's invention which was knownin 1843 was the need to synchronise the receiver to thetransmitter, as in certain telegraph systems. Ronalds,Wheatstone and Cooke and others had evolved synchro-nous telegraph systems, but it was Wheatstone and Cookewho showed, three years before Bain's 1843 patent, theimportance of having a locked synchronous system ratherthan one based on the free running of the transmitter andreceiver mechanisms. Bain's scheme utilised this principle,although he used a different mechanism to the oneemployed by Wheatstone and Cooke.

The novel concept incorporated in Bain's invention wasundoubtedly the principle of automatically scanning a 2-dimensional array and transmitting, also automatically,signals dependent on some variable characteristic of thesurface. Various schemes of telegraphy had depended on aregular scanning of, effectively, a 1-dimensional array, e.g.a line of symbols as in Chappe's synchronous clock type ofoptical telegraph; but none of these had automaticallytransmitted signals, depending on the intelligence to betransmitted, to a receiver. In Bain's invention the presenceor absence of a metal type was determined without inter-vention from the operator.

2.2 Frederick BakewellIt is rather surprising that Bain did not extend his inven-tion to include the transmission of drawings, maps and thelike. This was left to F.C. Bakewell to achieve in 1848, and,

as a result, some controversy took place in 1850 as to whowas actually the first to propose the facsimile transmissionof handwritten letters and sketches.

Bakewell's instrument was the first to be practicallydemonstrated for sending facsimiles, and incorporatedideas advanced in a patent, dated 2nd December 1848. Itwas well presented and differed from that of Bain in anumber of important points.

First, the original communication, a copy of which wasto be sent to a distant place, was written with varnish, orsome other nonconducting substance, onto tin foil or asimilar conductor and the tin foil then wrapped around acylinder at the transmitting end of the telegraph link. Thiscylinder was rotated at a uniform speed by means of aweight and clockwork type of mechanism, and was tra-versed by a metal style which was carried in a traversingnut mounted on a lead screw. At the receiver, an identicalcylinder carrying chemically treated paper and associatedmechanism were used. Thus, whenever the transmitterstyle pressed on the exposed tin foil, the circuit was com-pleted through the moistened paper and a mark wasrecorded. The preparation of the master surface fromwhich copies were to be transmitted was consequentlymuch simpler in Bakewell's apparatus than in that of Bain.Furthermore, the system of rotating cylinders and associ-ated linearly moving styles was the precursor to mostmodern facsimile transmitting instruments.

Secondly, whereas Bain had employed a mechanism tocheck the motion of his pendulums at each swing, Bake-well made use of freely swinging pendulums. He was awarethat such a simple control might not have the desiredeffect, and utilised a reference or guide line on the cylinderof the transmitting instrument. 'By means of this guideline', he wrote, 'the person in charge of the receiving instru-ment is enabled to regulate it exactly in accordance withthe transmitting instrument by regulating the pendulumand adjusting the weight'.

Neither Bain's nor Bakewell's designs formed the basisof a regular facsimile service in the UK during the nine-teenth century, but Bakewell's instruments successfullyreceived autographic messages transmitted from Brightonto London.

2.3 Early commercial venturesL'Abbe Caselli's apparatus, which bore a considerableresemblance to that of Bain, was successfully tried out inItaly in 1862. The Times of 22nd February noted: 'It (theinvention) transmits autograph messages and drawingswith all the perfections and defects of the originals. Aninhabitant of Leghorn wrote four lines from Dante andthey appeared in the same handwriting at Florence. A por-trait of the same poet was painted at Leghorn and it wasreproduced at Florence line for line and shade for shade'.

The first dispatch transmitted in France was made on10th February 1862 from Lyon to Paris. Later Le CorpsLegislatif ordered the establishment of the 'pantelegraph'on the railway between these two cities, and from 16thFebruary 1863 the public was able to send messages. In1867, the Director of Telegraphs, M. de Vougy, sanctionedthe installation of a line on the Marseille-Lyon route andhis department provided the necessary metallised paper forthe facsimiles. The charge was calculated at the rate of0.2 fr for each square centimetre of sheet transmitted, but,unfortunately, the public did not appreciate the impor-tance of the system, and after a few years the State aban-doned its enterprise.

A similar scheme to Caselli's was employed by a Frenchtelegraph engineer named Meyer, except that he used syn-

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chronously running metal cylinders similar to thoseemployed by Bakewell. Meyer's apparatus was put intooperation between Paris and Lyon in 1869, but after ashort time was taken out of service.

D'Arlincourt was not discouraged by the lack of successof the Caselli and Meyer equipments, for he carried outsome experiments between Paris and Marseille in 1872with a similar type of apparatus, but, although it was asuccess at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, it was laterquickly abandoned like its predecessors.

2.4 The photoconductive property of seleniumThe early (i.e. pre-1873) operational picture telegraph

schemes were limited in their application to the repro-duction, at a distance, of images of pictures and the likewhich could be drawn in varnish on a conducting sheet orwhich could be suitably prepared so that a scanning stylusand associated apparatus could discriminate between thepicture and the background.

During the period 1843-72, the only known effectwhich related changes of light intensity to changes in anelectric current was that discovered by Becquerel in 1839in his investigations on the electrochemical effects of light.Becquerel's observations demanded the use of a highly sen-sitive galvanometer and, consequently, the effect was notsuitable for incorporation into a 'distant vision' scheme.

But in 1873 Willoughby Smith communicated a dis-covery to the Society of Telegraph Engineers which, a fewyears later, appeared to provide a means for 'seeing byelectricity'. Smith's disclosure concerned the photo-conductive property of selenium, a characteristic of theelement which was to be utilised in many of the earlyschemes for television until the development of suitableamplifiers and photoemissive cells made selenium cellsobsolete in the 1920s.

The photoconductive property of selenium was easilydemonstrated and, in the decade following WilloughbySmith's letter, there was an expectation among scientistsand others that 'seeing by electricity' would soon be areality. This expectation was based not only on the resultswhich had been achieved in the field of picture telegraphy,together with Willoughby Smith's disclosure, but also onthe invention of the telephone, by Alexander Graham Bellin 1876, which enabled 'hearing by electricity' to be readilyimplemented. The simplicity of Bell's device and the lack ofeffort involved in its development possibly stimulatedinventors to attempt the transmission of moving images byelectrical means, for several suggestions for 'telectroscopes'were put forward in the 10-year period following the 1873announcement (see Table 1).

An added impetus was probably provided by the workof Bell and Tainter on photophones, a device whichenables sounds, both musical and vocal, to be transmittedto a distance by the agency of a modulated beam of lightand a selenium cell. Bell and Tainter demonstrated theirphotophone on 19th February 1880 in Bell's laboratory at1325 L Street Washington. Bell seems to have been con-siderably elated by their success, and, in a letter to hisfather, he wrote: 'Can imagination picture what the futureof this invention is to be .... We may talk by light to anyvisible distance without any conducting wire Inwarfare the electric communications of an army couldneither be cut nor tapped. On the ocean communicationmay be carried on ... between vessels ... and lighthousesmay be identified by the sound of their lights. In generalscience discoveries will be made by the photophone thatare undreamed of just now'.

Many years later, in 1921, less than a year before hisdeath and in an age of intercontinental radio communica-tions, Bell told an interviewer that 'in the importance of theprinciples involved I regard the photophone as the greatestinvention I have ever made; greater than the telephone'.

The importance of the photophone in the context of thehistory of television lies in its use of the selenium cell. Herewas a practical application of Willoughby Smith's dis-covery which seemed at the time to have many uses. Early'distant vision' workers were probably encouraged in theirefforts by the initial success of the photophone.

However the problem of 'seeing by electricity' was of analtogether different order of complexity compared with theproblem of 'hearing by electricity', and success eluded theabove workers. An early indication that selenium was notan ideal photoconductive material was given by Sale, in apaper to the Royal Society in 1873. Sale's experimentsshowed that instantaneous changes of light intensity on aselenium bar did not cause instantaneous changes of resist-ance in the material. This property of selenium was to limittelevision development for many years and, even when sel-enium cells were employed by Korn in low-speed picturetelegraphy systems, in the first decade of the 20th century,a special circuit had to be devised to overcome partiallythis defect.

Nevertheless, the work of the 19th century televisionpioneers was not wholly unproductive and, by the end ofthe century, some of the basic system components neededto implement a television service had been proposed. Theelementary principles of scanning, in particular, were wellunderstood and many of the early scanners were later suc-cessfully utilised by scientists and engineers in the period1925-36. In addition, Hallwach's work on the photoelec-

Table 1: List showing the dates (and names of inventors) of some 'distant-vision'proposals for the period 1875-1925

1878 de Paiva1879 Perosino1879 Senlecq1880 Carey1880 Ayrton and Perry1880 Le Blanc1880 Sawyer1880 Middleton1881 Bidwell1882 Senlecq1882 Lucas1884 Nipkow1889 Weiller1891 Brillouin1891 Sutton1897 Szczepanik1902 Coblyn1904 Belin and Belin

1904 von Jawofsky and Frankenstein1906 Lux1906 Rignoux1906 Dieckmann and Glage1907 Rosing1908 Campbell Swinton1910 Ekstrom1910 Schwierer1911 Rosing1911 Campbell Swinton1914 Lavington-Hart1915 Voulgre1917 Nicolson1920 Baden-Powell1921 Whiston1921 Schoultz1922 Belin1922 Valensi

1923 von Mihaly1923 Jenkins1923 Westinghouse1923 Dauvillier1923 Zworykin1923 Western Electric1923 Stephenson and Walton1923 Baird1923 Nisco1923 Robb and Martin1924 Seguin and Seguin1924 Blake and Spooner1924 Belin1924 Baird1924d'Albe1925 Whitten1925 Baird

30 IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 133, Pt. A, No. I, JANUARY 1986

trie effect in 1888 and the detailed investigations from 1889of Elster and Geitel on photoelectricity were importantcontributions that were to play a vital part in the progressof television.

2.5 The early use of cathode ray tubesBy the beginning of the 1890-1900 decade, as a conse-quence of the work of Plucker (1858), Perrin (1875), Gold-stein (1876), Crookes (1879) and others, the problem of theconduction of electricity in gases was assuming greatimportance. Lord Kelvin remarked in 1893: 'If the firststep towards understanding the relation between ether andponderable matter is to be made, it seems to me that themost hopeful foundation for it is knowledge derived fromexperiments of electricity in high vacuum'. Much work inthis field was performed in the last decade of the 19thcentury by Thomson, who, from 1894, had undertaken aseries of experiments on cathode rays which culminated inthe determination of the charge, mass and velocities of theparticles in the rays. For the accuracy of measurementwhich he desired Thomson found it necessary to constructspecial forms of discharge tubes. However, the credit forthe invention of the cathode ray tube as a practical labor-atory instrument for electrical measurements is usuallygiven to Braun.

Following Braun's publication in 1897, the developmentand use of cathode ray tubes was pursued by several inves-tigators, and so it was perhaps inevitable that someonewould suggest that it should be incorporated in a tele-vision system.

Rosing, in 1908, was the first person to put forward a'seeing by electricity' method which included a cathode raytube receiver, although prior to this date Dieckman andGlage, in 1906, in a German patent, had described a'method for the transmission of written material and linedrawings by means of cathode ray tubes'.

Rosing persisted with his early ideas and on 9th May1911 he recorded in his notebook:'... a distinct image wasseen for the first time consisting of four luminous bands'.After 1911 Rosing did not make any significant contribu-tions to the development of television. He certainly appre-ciated the benefits which television would bring and, in anarticle in the French journal Excelsior, he wrote: 'Electri-cal telescopy will permit man not only to commune withother human beings, but also with nature itself. With the"electric eye" we will be able to penetrate where no humanbeing has penetrated before The electric eye will beman's friend, his watchful companion, which will sufferfrom neither heat nor cold, which will have its place onlighthouses and at guard posts, which will beam highabove the rigging of ships, close to the sky. The electriceye, a help to man in peace, will accompany the soldierand facilitate communication between all members ofhuman society'.

From 1910 to 1912 Rosing was assisted in his researchesat the Technological Institute, St. Petersburg, by Zwory-kin, a former student of the Institute. Later from 1923, andin the USA, Zworykin pursued his own ideas on televisionand in 1933 described the world's first electronic televisioncamera tube, which he called the iconoscope (see Fig. 4).

Elsewhere, from the turn of the century, the problem of'distant electric vision' or 'seeing by electricity' was engag-ing the attention of several individuals, including M.Armengaud, who firmly believed, in 1908, 'that within ayear, as a consequence of the advance already made by hisapparatus, we shall be watching one another across dis-tances of hundreds of miles apart'.

This was too much for Mr. Shelford Bidwell who, in a

letter to Nature, criticised Armengaud and noted: 'It maybe doubted whether those who are bold enough to attemptany such feat adequately realise the difficulties which con-front them'.

Fig. 4 V.K. Zworykin with one of his iconoscope tubes

Shelford Bidwell calculated correctly that, if a definitionequal to that of the coarse half-tone pictures to be foundin some daily newspapers were to be achieved by a distantvision system, the number of synchronised operations persecond would have to be 160000; this was 'widely imprac-ticable' he noted. His proposed solution was primarily thatput forward by Carey in 1880, which was suggested by thestructure of the eye: 'the essential condition is that everyunit of area of the transmitter screen should be in per-manent and independent connection with the correspond-ing unit of the receiving screen'. In this way, ShelfordBidwell thought that the difficulties due to synchronisationcould be overcome without any serious complexity apartfrom the multiplication of components. He estimated thecost of a system which would enable a 2 inch x 2 inch(51 mm x 51 mm) image to be received from a transmitter100 miles away as £1 250000. 'Of each of the elementaryworking parts, (selenium cells, luminosity-controllingdevices, projection lenses for the receiver and conductingwires) there would be 90000'. The receiving apparatuswould occupy a space of about 4000 cubic feet (113.27 m3)and the cable connecting the stations would have a diam-eter of 8 or 9 inches (20-23 cm).

Television clearly was not going to develop along thelines proposed by Shelford Bidwell. On the other hand, itseemed inconceivable, at that time, that mechanicalmethods could be invented which would allow 160000synchronised operations per second to be carried out. Thesolution to this dilemma was first proposed by CampbellSwinton in a letter to Nature which was a comment onShelford Bidwell's letter of 4th June 1908. Three years

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later, in November 1911, Campbell Swinton elaborated onhis earlier ideas in his Presidential Address to the RontgenSociety.

These ideas influenced McGee who, from 1932, led theteam at Electric and Musical Industries (EMI) which pro-duced the emitron tube, the British equivalent of the icon-oscope. In a paper on 'Campbell Swinton and television'published in Nature, two weeks before the opening of theLondon Station at Alexandra Palace (Fig. 5), McGee

Fig. 5 The Alexandra Palace television antenna

Designed by C.S. Franklin and installed by The Marconi Company, for the world'sfirst public high-definition television service which opened in November 1936

[Marconi]

opined: 'Modern television owes much to the researchesand achievements of many distinguished workers, but in itsessence it had been developed upon the fundamental linesput forward by Campbell Swinton'.

2.6 Early post-1920 interest in televisionIn the 1911-20 period following Rosing's and CampbellSwinton's disclosures, only a few new schemes for 'seeingby electricity' were advanced. This situation was to changesignificantly during the next decade.

Whereas valves were not generally available in 1911,by 1920 they were easily obtainable. Fleming's and deForest's inventions of the diode and audion in 1904 and1906, respectively, had been greatly developed. Also deForest's discovery in 1912, that the triode valve, in addi-tion to its application in detecting and amplifying circuits,could be used in an oscillator to generate electromagneticwaves was to be of great importance in the history ofsound and television broadcasting.

Furthermore the 1914-18 war gave an impetus to theutilisation of valves in signalling systems, and so stimu-lated developments in circuit and radio equipment tech-niques that by 1918 triodes could be manufactured tocover a wide power range and were suitable for both recei-ving and transmitting purposes.

Consequently, by 1920 the time was ripe for the estab-

32

lishment of sound broadcasting: the radio systems wereavailable and public demand was growing. In the USA theWestinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company,which owned an experimental station KDKA, noted in1920 that its broadcasts were popular and established aregular broadcasting service. Sound broadcasting on a per-manent basis commenced in the UK during November1922.

The growth of commercial radio telephony and domes-tic broadcasting influenced the progress of television. Bythe early 1920s all the basic components of a rudimentarytelevision system appeared to be available. Whereas before1920 only a few isolated attempts had been made to inves-tigate, on an experimental basis, the subject of 'distantvision', from approximately the commencement of the1920-30 period determined efforts to advance televisionwere being made in the UK, the USA and Germany. Ini-tially these endeavours were mainly those of individualsworking in isolation from others. J.L. Baird of the UK,C.F. Jenkins of the USA and D. von Mihaly, a Hungarianworking in Germany, were three of the principal earlyinvestigators in this period. For a short time in 1923,Zworykin pursued some personal work on an all-electrictelevision camera, while at the Westinghouse Electric andManufacturing Company, USA, but the only determinedeffort by a public or private organisation appears to bethat which was initiated at the Admiralty Research Labor-atory, Teddington, in 1923.

From 1925 this situation changed, Bell Laboratories ofthe American Telephone and Telegraph Company beganan ambitious programme of work, which led to an impres-sive demonstration in April 1927 of well engineered appar-atus for the transmission and reception of televisionimages by land line and radio links (see Fig. 6). Later in

Fig. 6 Transmitting apparatus for television arranged for demonstra-tions in the auditorium of Bell Laboratories, July 1927

Seated before the photoelectric cells which act as eyes is R.C. Mathes, and behindhim J.W. Horton, members of the technical staff who contributed importantly to theelectrical features of television equipment. On the right facing a motor of his designis H.M. Stoller who was largely responsible for the development of suitable methodsof syncronisations in television.

the USA, General Electric, Westinghouse Electric andManufacturing Company and the Radio Corporation ofAmerica, in addition to a number of smaller companies,also began to be associated with television projects; whilein Germany both Fernseh A.G. and Telefunken wereactive in this field by the end of the decade. Leading com-panies in the UK adopted a rather reserved position on

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television matters until 1930, and before then only theBaird companies (Television Ltd., Baird Television Devel-opment Company and Baird International Television Ltd.)vigorously engaged in the pursuit of 'distant vision'research and development. The Marconi Wireless Tele-graph Company, and the Gramophone Company startedtheir television activities in 1930.

3 Television developments

3.1 The early work ofJ.L. BairdThe approaches of Baird, Jenkins and von Mihaly to theirtasks were quite distinct. Jenkins was a well known inven-tor and a person of considerable means. He had producedimportant inventions in the field of cinematography andwas able to design and manufacture equipment of somecomplexity. His early rotary scanners consisted either ofspecially ground prismatic discs or costly lensed discs.Mihaly, an experienced patent expert and engineer, usedan oscillating mirror scanner together with tuning forksand phonic motors for synchronising purposes. Baird'sapproach to the television problem necessarily had tobe entirely different from those of his contemporaries.He had little money, no laboratory facilities for the con-struction and repair of equipment, no access to specialistexpertise, and no experience of research and developmentwork in electrical engineering. He had to carry out hisexperiments in the unsuitable surroundings of privatelodgings.

Nevertheless, a rudimentary form of television (whichhas been defined as 'the representation, by telegraph, intransitory visible form, of images, of persons, spectacles orobjects in movement or at rest') was first successfullydemonstrated by Baird on 2nd October 1925, and subse-quently shown by him to about forty members of theRoyal Institution oh 26th January 1926. The demonstra-tion consisted, partly, of the reproduction of an image of aperson's face: reflected light was, of course, used [3].

From the beginning of his investigations to October1925 Baird had experimented with many variants of theNipkow disc and with several different types and arrange-ments of image producing apparatus. During some of hisearly work Baird used selenium cells and, as with otherresearchers from 1875, experienced difficulties because oftheir poor transient responses. Baird's solution to thisproblem was simple and original: he added to the cell'soutput current a component proportional to the firstderivative of the output current and obtained a muchimproved response. Success followed [4].

Baird's achievement may be weighed by considering thework of the Admiralty Research Laboratory (ARL) ontelevision. The objective of the Admiralty in conductingexperiments in this field was 'for spotting at sea with theuse of aeroplanes'. A university-trained research scientistand others commenced the investigation in 1923. InJanuary 1925, Dr. C.V. Drysdale, the superintendent of thelaboratories, described the problem as difficult but felt thatit could be solved with 'money and staff'. Approximatelyseventeen months later he had modified his opinion andreferred to the extreme difficulty of finding a practical solu-tion. An inspection of ARL's television equipment, whichincluded a photoelectric cell made by the National Physi-cal Laboratory (NPL), was undertaken by two represent-atives of the Air Ministry, on 27th May 1926, and duringthis an image of an object consisting of a grid of three barsof cardboard, each about 0.25 inch (6.35 mm) in width and0.25 inch (6.35 mm) apart, was transmitted. Althoughtransmitted light was employed the object 'could just be

recognised at the receiving end, but the reproduction wasvery crude' [5].

Almost every conceivable scanner was suggested in theperiod 1877-1936, but of all the many different mechanicalscanners devised the Nipkow disc was the one most widelyutilised. After 1925, the Nipkow disc formed an essentialpart of the early schemes of the American Telephone andTelegraph Company, the Radio Corporation of America,the General Electric Company, Sanabria, Jenkins andothers in the USA; of Mihaly, Karolus, Telefunken andFernseh A.G. in Germany; of the Baird companies,Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company and HMV in GreatBritain, inter alia. Bell Laboratories, in particular, showedin the late 1920s what could be achieved with this type ofscanner (see Fig. 7).

The Laboratories were formed in 1925, when the engin-eering department of Western Electric was reorganised andbecame Bell Laboratories, with a total staff of approx-imately 3600. With its vast resources the Laboratories'television demonstrations probably represented the bestwhich could be shown, anywhere. From 1925 to 1930(inclusive), the American Telephone and TelegraphCompany approved the expenditure of $308 100 on low-definition television developments, and a further $592400on other aspects of television from 1931 to 1935 (inclusive).Baird's financial resources from 1923 to 1927 wereminimal, and so, necessarily, his equipments and demons-trations could not emulate those of the Bell Laboratories.The formation of the Baird Television DevelopmentCompany, in 1927, and Baird International TelevisionLtd., in 1928, however enabled Baird to recruit staff andacquire reasonable premises and workshop facilities.

Baird had to devote a great deal of time and labour toacquire a patent holding which would place his companiesin a favourable position commercially, and until c.1930 heengaged in this task almost single-handedly. From thestart of his work in 1923 to the end of 1930 Baird appliedfor 88 patents; the number of patents originating fromother members of the Baird companies in the same periodtotal four.

Not surprisingly, Baird had little time for writing scien-tific papers and engaging in field trials of the type men-tioned earlier (the Bell Laboratories's demonstrations werereported as having occupied the attentions of severalhundred engineers and technicians). He tried to anticipateevery likely development and application of the new art(see Fig. 8). Daylight television, noctovision, colour tele-vision, news by television, stereoscopic television, long dis-tance television, phonovision, two-way television, zonetelevision and large screen television were all demonstratedin a rudimentary way by Baird during a four-year periodof activity.

Baird's contribution, in the 1920s, to the art of tele-vision, albeit low-definition television, may be comparedwith that of Bell Laboratories, see Table 2. The Table isnot comprehensive and does not serve to determinewhether Baird or a staff member at Bell Laboratories wasthe first to patent or demonstrate a particular aspect ormethod of television. Rather, it is a basis to indicateBaird's sound understanding of the television problem andto show that, in the 1920s, his concepts and his implemen-tation of those concepts were vindicated by the activitiesand thoughts of a well endowed and well staffed researchorganisation.

The difficulties facing television workers in the late1920s were highlighted by Dr. H.E. Ives, the director oftelevision research at Bell Laboratories, in an importantpaper written in 1930. He wrote: 'All parts of the television

IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 133, Pt. A, No. 1, JANUARY 1986 33

system are already having difficulty in handling the 4000-element image' — corresponding to a 72-line standard.After surveying the problems he concluded: 'The existingsituation is that if a many-element television image iscalled for today, it is not available, and one of the chief

Lords or tennis at Wimbledon; the BBC felt that low-definition television was inappropriate to its services. As aconsequence, the BBC's policy towards Baird's work wasnecessarily negative in outlook, and did not conduce to therapid advancement of Baird's aims.

Fig. 7 Marconi 50-line broadcast television transmitter [Marconi]

obstacles is the difficulty of generating, transmitting, andreceiving signals extending over wide frequency bands'.

Baird's plans for television were ambitious and exten-sive, as were those of Marconi for marine wireless commu-nications, and he hoped to establish his system in manycountries including, of course, the UK. Baird wished tocreate a television monopoly in this country, but the ratheraggressive methods employed by his business associatescaused antagonism with the BBC. The lack of enthusiasmshown by the Corporation towards Baird's low-definitionsystem was a source of much concern and frustration toBaird and his supporters, and resulted in delays in theexecution of their objectives.

Essentially, the BBC was not interested in participatingin the advancement of television on the basis of a systemwhich could not reproduce images of, say, a test match at

Fig. 8 J.L. Baird at work on a cathode ray tube during his developmentof colour television in 1943

Patronage and encouragement are important factors inthe early progress of an invention; Marconi initially wasfortunate in this respect. In America and elsewhere facili-ties for television broadcasting were given by broadcastingstations in the 1920s, but in Britain the chief engineer ofthe BBC opposed the use of the BBC's stations for thispurpose. This opposition led to Baird's business associatespursuing a vigorous policy to establish a low-definitiontelevision service. They were successful and on 30th Sep-tember 1929 an experimental 30-line service was inaugu-rated, followed on 22nd August 1932 by a 30-line publicservice.

Baird and the directors of the Baird companies made anumber of errors of judgment in advancing their aims [6].First, they failed initially to appoint high-calibre researchscientists and engineers. The importance of this point iswell illustrated by the successes which the highly qualifiedresearch teams of RCA and EMI, led by Drs. Zworykinand Engstrom and Mr. Shoenberg, respectively, achievedin the early 1930s. Marconi, also, surrounded himself froman early stage with a group of very able engineers andtechnicians.

Secondly, insufficient weight was attached to the valueof consultants. Marconi fully appreciated their worth andemployed them for many years.

Thirdly, Baird ignored for too long the inevitable movetowards high-definition television and the utilisation ofcathode-ray tubes in receivers. He failed to recognise, inthe late 1920s, that 30-line television could never give riseto an all-embracing television broadcasting service.

Fourthly, Baird Television Ltd. did not reach an agree-ment with the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company in1932. Two years later, the Company combined forces withEMI to form the Marconi-EMI Television Co. Ltd. As aconsequence, the MWT Company's vast experience andexpertise in the fields of valve, modulator, transmitter,feeder and antenna design, and their knowledge of radio

34 IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 133, Pt. A, No. 1, JANUARY 1986

propagation, was denied to Baird Television Ltd. andinstead was made available to their rivals.

3.2 The development of EMI televisionElectric and Musical Industries (EMI) were formed in 1931to acquire the ownership of the Gramophone Company

have ever seen and were probably as good as or betterthan anything that had been produced anywhere in theworld . . . there is not the slightest doubt that a great dealof development, thought and expenditure had beenexpended on these developments. . . . In order to givesome idea of the cost of such work, I might mention that

Table 2: Comparison of Baird's contributions in the 1920s to those of Bell Laboratories

Use of/demonstration of Baird Bell Laboratories

1 Nipkow discs2 Means to reduce time lag of

photocells

3 Coloured filters on lamps toreduce discomfiture of personsbeing televised

4 Large Nipkow discs

5 Spotlight scanning

6 Two-way television

7 Transatlantic television

8 Intercalated images to improveresolution

9 Colour television10 Large-screen television11 Daylight television

12 Zone television

13 Commutated lamp bank/display

From 1923From c.1925. Used derivative ofphotocell current. Patent 270222,21st Oct. 1925

Various experiments in 1925.Demonstration of television usinginfra-red radiation, 23rd Nov. 1926Utilised discs up to 8 ft (2.44 m)in diameter sometime during theperiod 1923-25Employed from 1926 to 1936. Patent269658, 20th January 1926

Patent 309965, 19th October 1927

Demonstrated 9th February 1928

Patent 253957, 1st January 1925.Various experiments c.1924Demonstrated 3rd July 1928Demonstrated 28th July 1930Demonstrated June 1928

Demonstrated 2nd January 1931.Patent 360942, 6th August 1930

Patent 222604, 26th July 1923.Demonstrated 28th July 1930

From 1925From c.1925/26. Used C - Ft couplingcircuit to enhance high-frequencygain. Internal memorandum 27th Feb.1926Various experiments in 1925.Mentioned in internal memorandum,26th August 1925Advantage of using discs up to 10 ft (3.05 m)in diameter mentioned in an internalmemorandum, 27th July 1925Employed from c.1925-26. US Patentapplied for on 6th April 1927. UKPatent 288238, 18th January 1928UK Patent 297152, 17th June1927. Demonstrated from 9th April1930 to 31 st December 1932Suggested as a publicity event inan internal memorandum 4th May 1927Mentioned in internal memorandum9th September 1927Demonstrated July 1929Demonstrated 7th April 1927Need to work on natural lightscanning mentioned in an internalmemorandum 4th May 1927Described in a paper by H.E. Ives,'A multi-channel television apparatus',J. Opt. Soc. Am., 1931, 21Demonstrated 7th April 1927

and the Columbia Graphophone Company. The RadioCorporation of America (RCA) had a substantial shareholding in the latter company, and so held a number ofshares in the new company. This holding represented29.28% of EMI's total issued ordinary share capital and27.13% of the total issued shares of EMI including its pref-erence shares. Mr. I. Shoenberg, who had been with theColumbia Graphophone Company, and prior to that hadbeen Head of the Patents Department and a GeneralManager of the Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Company,was appointed Director of Research and Head of thePatents Department of the new company.

Shoenberg rapidly established a powerful researchgroup which included Blumlein, Willans, Cork andHolman of the Columbia Graphophone Co. and Browne,Tedham and Condliffe of the Gramophone Co. Manyuniversity-trained research workers were recruited, includ-ing Dr. Klatzow, Dr. Miller, Dr. Crowther, Dr. McGee,Dr. Lubszynski, Dr. Stewart-Brown, Dr. Broadway et al.By June 1934, the research department comprised 33 uni-versity graduates, 28 laboratory assistants (of inter-B.Sc.standard), 7 draughtsmen, 33 mechanics and glassblowersand 7 girls; a total of 108 personnel.

On the 29th November 1932, Shoenberg invited Ash-bridge, the chief engineer of the BBC, to a private demons-tration 'both in the transmission and reception oftelevision'.

Ashbridge visited the Hayes factory on 30th Novemberand was shown apparatus for the transmission of filmsusing a standard of 120 lines per picture, 25 pictures persecond. He was most impressed and wrote: 'The demons-trations represented by far the best wireless television I

the number of people employed is only slightly less thanthat in the whole of our research department'.

The actual demonstration consisted of the transmissionof the televised images of a number of silent films. A250 W transmitter operating at 6 m was utilised and thesignals were propagated over a distance of 2 miles. EMIhoped that the BBC would take up their system on anexperimental basis, for about seven or eight months andthen later for regular use.

This state of affairs heralded an ominous situation forBaird Television Ltd. which could not match the resourcesof EMI Ltd., which was spending about £100000 per yearon television research and development.

Many representations, discussions, negotiations anddemonstrations involving the two companies the BBC andthe GPO were held in 1933 and, in an endeavour toresolve the various difficulties raised and satisfy the rivalclaims and aspirations of the two companies, the DirectorGeneral of the BBC wrote on 15th March to the Postmas-ter General and suggested that a conference should be heldto discuss the future arrangements for the handling of tele-vision.

This suggestion led to the founding in April 1934 of theTelevision Committee under the chairmanship of LordSelsdon and was made after the BBC had witnesseddemonstrations of 150-line television by EMI Ltd. andBaird Television Ltd. on 12th January and 12th March1934, respectively.

Ashbridge, who attended both tests, reported: 'The filmtransmission given by EMI is appreciably better than thatshown by the Baird Co. On the other hand, however, noopportunity has been available so far to compare a

1EE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 133, Pt. A, No. I, JANUARY 1986 35

demonstration under absolutely strictly comparable condi-tions. Moreover, the EMI Co. have not so far attempted ademonstration with living objects', whereas Baird Tele-vision had televised human beings, albeit crudely, from1926.

Both companies were aided, at this time, in theirendeavours by their associations with other industrialorganisations. Baird Television Ltd. had the use of patentsstemming from the research and development activities ofFernseh A.G., the German consortium which was estab-lished in 1929; and EMI Ltd. had close links with theRadio Corporation of America and with the MarconiWireless Telegraph Company Ltd.

The collaboration of EMI with MWT commenced in1931 when MWT, which was investigating, at that time,low-definition television [7], was invited to supply the low-power ultra-short-wave transmitter (complete withmodulator), for use with EMI's film scanner. This 400 W,44 MHz transmitter was delivered in January 1932. Later,in June 1933, MWT supplied a 4 kW transmitter, and, inJanuary 1934, a new vision transmitter and Franklinantenna operating at 44 MHz were installed. The peakpower output was 9 kW with a video bandwidth of1.4 MHz; a performance which was entirely satisfactoryfor the 180 lines per frame, 25 frames per second, televisionsystem then being investigated.

The above co-operation led, in May 1934, to the forma-tion of the Marconi-EMI Television Company Ltd. byEMI and MWT, the two companies being the onlyshareholders, each holding an equal number of shares.

Shoenberg, like Baird and Marconi, followed a policywhich would place his company in a strong positionpatentwise. With the formation of the new company, hehad access to all the patents relating to television, whichhad originated with the General Electric Company ofAmerica, with the Radio Corporation of America, withTelefunken of Germany, with the Marconi Wireless Tele-graph Company and with EMI Ltd. Many of these patentswere master patents, including some relating to feeders,antennas, shortwave transmitters and transmitting valvesheld by MWT and the Ballard patent on interlacing heldby RCA.

3.3 The Selsdon ReportIn its report of 14th January 1935 the Television Com-mittee recommended inter alia:

(a) 'A start should be made by the establishment of aservice in London with two television systems operatingalternately from one transmitting station'

(b) 'Baird Television Ltd. and Marconi-EMI TelevisionCo. Ltd. should be given an opportunity to supply, subjectto conditions, the necessary apparatus for the operation of,their respective systems at the London Station'

(c) 'The Postmaster General should forthwith appointan advisory committee to plan and guide the initiation andthe early development of the television service'.

The first meeting of the Television Advisory Committee(TAC) was held on 5th February 1935, with Lord Selsdonin the chair. There were a number of immediate mattersfor the committee to discuss; namely, the specification ofthe television apparatus and the location of the LondonStation.

The BBC undertook an exhaustive search for possiblesites in elevated situations both on the north and southsides of London [8]. Of the four principal possibilities(Alexandra Palace, Crystal Palace, Tudor House andHeath House), various factors led to the selection of Alex-

andra Palace. It possessed excellent accommodation whichcould be utilised for studios and equipment rooms, it wassituated 306 ft (93.27 m) above sea level, it was sufficientlyclose to Broadcasting House to allow the installation of atelevision cable link between the two centres, the Gover-nors of the Palace were ready to assist the BBC 'in everyway within reason', and the site was so positioned that theservice area for a transmitter at the site covered primarily'that part of London in which the residents might reason-ably be expected to be amongst the first to acquire tele-vision receivers'.

The specification of the television equipment for theLondon Station was dealt with by the Technical Subcom-mittee of the TAC. At its second meeting held on 15thFebruary 1935 Shoenberg and his colleagues, Blumleinand Condliffe, advanced their company's proposals basedon a 405 lines per picture, 25 pictures per second, 50frames per second standard [9]: such a standard had neverpreviously been mentioned to Lord Selsdon or his col-leagues. Great credit is due to Shoenberg and to his teamleaders, McGee, Blumlein and Broadway, who directed theresearch staffs who worked on the development of theemitron camera tube, the link and circuits generally for thesystem, and the hard vacuum cathode-ray receiving tubes,respectively.

Shoenberg made his decision to offer the 405-line stan-dard, after having referred on a previous occasion to a243-line standard, knowing that the receivers available atthat time could not reproduce an image of the samequality as the transmitted image. However, his view wasthat it was better that the early received pictures should belacking in some detail, so that later developments in recei-ver design could be implemented without any change ofstandard. In addition, the work of Wenstrom and of Engs-trom in 1933 had shown that a 400-line picture corre-sponded in definition to that of home cine films.Shoenberg's proposal caused concern to a number oforganisations, including Scophony and IMK Ltd., workingwith mechanical scanners.

Marconi-EMI Television Co. Ltd. and Baird TelevisionLtd. submitted tenders to the TAC for the vision transmit-ter and studio apparatus by 4th July 1935. The formercompany's quotation was based on the supply of sixemitron cameras, four for studio use and two for scanningfilm. The quotation of Baird Television Ltd. was moreextensive than that of their competitor and highlighted thecumbrous nature of their equipment vis-a-vis the highlymobile emitron cameras. Provision was made for a spot-light scanner for close-ups of speakers and announcers,intermediate film apparatus for the televising of largescenes, a Farnsworth electron image camera for use in themain studio and film scanning equipment. Of the studioequipment, the spotlight scanner and intermediate filmapparatuses were noisy and static and necessitated install-ation in sound proof rooms. On the other hand, theemitron cameras were small, noiseless, easily portable andfairly sensitive. The estimated studio lighting requirementsfor the two sets of equipment illustrate this latter point:

Marconi-EMI Television Ltd. :(i) Roof lighting 18 kW

(ii) Directional lighting 6 kW

Baird Television Ltd. :(i) Supply arc for two telecine transmitters and

intermediate film equipment 28.5 kW(ii) Supply arc of spotlight transmitter 31.5 kW

(iii) Studio lighting for electron camera andintermediate transmitter 94.4 kW

36 IEE PROCEEDINGS, Vol. 133, Pt. A, No. I, JANUARY 1986

An additional disadvantage of the intermediate filmprocess was the cost of the 35 mm film stock and pro-cessing chemicals which amounted to £48 per hour or £12per hour using split 35 mm film stock. Against this, thequoted cost of servicing the emitron cameras with tubeswas £2.50 per transmission hour.

The experiences gained by the BBC of the operation ofboth television systems under service conditions from thestart of the world's first, public, regular, high-definitiontelevision system on 2nd November 1936 to 9th December1936 were described in a report written by G. Cock, theBBC's Director of Television. The report proved to behighly damaging to the interests of Baird Television Ltd.:indeed it meant the end of the company as a supplier oftelevision studio and transmitting equipment for the BBC'sstations and studios.

Cock stated that the Marconi-EMI Television Co'sequipment had proved capable of transmitting both directand film programmes with steadiness and a high degree offidelity. 'Its apparatus, being standardised throughout,reproduces a picture of consistently similar quality andrequires only one standard of lighting, make-up, and tonecontrast in decor. Its studio control facilities are conve-nient and comparatively simple. It has proved reliable, andhas already established a large measure of confidence inproducers, artists and technicians'.

Cock found it difficult to say anything complimentaryabout the Baird Television system. He wrote that the prog-rammes were being transmitted under practically experi-mental conditions and that the prospects of anythingapproaching finality in the studio stages of transmissionseemed remote. 'Alterations in apparatus were constantlytaking place. Breakdowns with little or no warning, and,even more serious, sudden, unexpected, and abnormal dis-tortions were a frequent experience'.

Cock's report was discussed by the Television AdvisoryCommittee on 16th December 1936; it had previouslyreceived a report from A.C. Cossor Ltd. on matters per-taining to the transmitted waveforms. The TAC had todecide whether the time had now arrived for them to makea definite decision on the question of transmission stan-dards. The contracts made with both companies containeda reference to the 'London experimental period' which wasdefined as 'terminating on the date on which a decision isreached concerning the system to be employed at theLondon Station'. With the two. reports before them theTAC quickly came to a conclusion and recommended tothe Postmaster General that the Marconi-EMI TelevisionCo.'s transmission standards should be adopted for theLondon Station. The recommendation was accepted andthe last transmission which utilised Baird Televisionequipment was made on 13th February 1937. Subse-

quently, Baird Television Ltd. concentrated its resourceson the advancement of cinema television [10].

4 Conclusions

The question often arises, 'Who invented television?', andthe issue has been the subject of some controversy.

Many persons contributed to the development of tele-vision, as it is known today, and a concise response to thequestion cannot be given, as it is too imprecisely framed.The question is in the same class as, 'Who invented radar?'[11]. If the question is asked, 'Who was the first person todemonstrate a rudimentary form of low-definition tele-vision?', then the answer is Baird. However, if the questionis, 'Who, or which company, engineered the world's first,public, regular, high-definition all-electronic televisionservice?', then the reply must be the Marconi-EMI Tele-vision Co. Ltd.

5 Acknowledments

The author gratefully acknowledges the kindness of theRadio Corporation of America (RCA), the American Tele-phone and Telegraph Company, Syndication Internationaland the Marconi Company in providing photographs forthis paper.

6 References

1 BURNS, R.W.: 'The history of British television with special referenceto the work of John Logie Baird'. Ph.D. thesis, University of Leicester,1976

2 BURNS, R.W.: 'Wireless pictures and the Fultograph', IEE Proc. A,1981,128,(1), pp. 78-88

3 BURNS, R.W.: 'The first demonstration of television', Electron. &Power, 1975, 21, pp. 953-956

4 BURNS, R.W.: 'J.L. Baird', Wireless World, 1976, 82, pp. 56-585 BURNS, R.W.: 'Early Admiralty interest in television'. 11th IEE

weekend meeting on the history of electrical engineering, University ofBirmingham, 15th-17th July 1983, pp. 1-17

6 BURNS, R.W.: 'J.L. Baird: success and failure', Proc. IEE, 1979, 126,(9), pp. 921-928

7 BURNS, R.W.: 'Early television developments in the MarconiCompany'. 7th IEE weekend meeting on the history of electricalengineering, University of Durham, 1979, pp. 97-114

8 BURNS, R.W.: 'The birth of the London television station — choiceof site and equipment'. 6th IEE weekend meeting on the history ofelectrical engineering, University of Nottingham, 7th-9th July 1978,pp. 22-45

9 BURNS, R.W.: 'The birth of the London television station — linestandards'. Ibid., pp. 3-21

10 BURNS, R.W.: 'The history of television for public showing incinemas in the UK', IEE Proc. A., 1985, 132, (8) (to be published)

11 BURNS, R.W.: 'The background to the development of radar'. 12thIEE weekend meeting on the history of electrical engineering, Uni-versity of Lancaster, 6th-8th July 1984, pp. 1-27

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