John Logie Baird

Pioneer of the television set:

You all enjoy watching television, don't you? The TV is now the most popular form of entertainment in the world and there's rarely a house without a television set, even in our country. While switching this household item on and off every day, did you ever stop to think whose brainwave led to this invention which we cannot live without now?

The first working television was introduced to the world by a Scottish engineer named John Logie Baird.

Baird was born on August 13, 1888 in Helensburgh, Scotland, the son of a clergyman. Despite suffering from health problems, he showed signs of brilliance quite early in life, with some novel ideas.

He followed his education at Larchfield School in Helensburgh and the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College. His studies at the Glasgow University were disrupted with the advent of the First World War. Being rejected by the forces as unfit, he started serving as superintendent engineer of the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company. After the war, he started a business, which brought him mixed results.

By this time, many scientists had started working on the dream that was television; Baird also moved to the south coast of England and started working on this idea. He first made a rather crude apparatus with some bits and pieces, and by 1924, managed to transmit a flickering image across a few feet. On January 26, 1926, he managed to give the world's first demonstration of true television before a room of fifty scientists in central London.

In 1927, his television was demonstrated over 438 miles of telephone lines between London and Glasgow, and he formed the Baird Television Development Company. In 1928, this company achieved the first transatlantic television transmission, between London and New York and the first transmission to a ship in mid-Atlantic.

The first television programme for the BBC was also produced by this company. Baird also gave the first demonstration of both colour and stereoscopic (three dimensional)television; the first colour transmission was made on July 3, 1928. In 1932, he became the first person to demonstrate ultra-short wave transmission.

Although sounds and vision were sent alternately at first, from 1930, they began simultaneous transmission. However, his invention was becoming rather outdated in technology and was later dropped in favour of a more technologically advanced, completely electronic system.

The Baird system, which was used by the BBC to broadcast its TV programmes from 1929 to 1935, was being used alongside the EMI electronic scanning system (developed by Marconi) by 1936. The BBC stopped broadcasts with the Baird system in early 1937.

Despite his invention being dropped in favour of more advanced systems later, Baird would always be associated with the television due to his early successes demonstrating working television broadcasts and his

 colour and cinema television work. A working model of his televisor is displayed at the London Science Museum.

Baird was responsible for many other inventions though not all of them were successful. Disrupting Glasgow's electricity supply by heating graphite to create diamonds; turning out a completely rust-resistant glass razor, which however shattered into pieces; trying to create pneumatic shoes with semi-inflated balloons which burst; thermal undersocks which were moderately successful; and a video recording device (Phonovision) created in 1928 were some of this work.

Baird also worked in fibre-optics, radio direction finding, infrared night viewing and radar. Although not completely known, he is believed to have made a major contribution to the development of radar.

The great inventor suffered a stroke in February 1946 and died on June 14 the same year in Bexhill-on-Sea in Sussex.