Who was John Logie Baird?
Television Engineer.
Date and Place of Birth:
13th August 1888, "The Lodge", Helensburgh,
Dumbartonshire, Scotland.
Family Background:
Fourth child the Reverend John and Jessie Baird.
Education:
Lachfield Academy. Studied electrical engineering
at The Royal Technical College, Glasgow (Now the University of Strathclyde).
University of Glasgow.
Chronology/Biography of John
Logie Baird:
As a child he had invented a telephone system
for "The Lodge" and connected it to the houses of some
of his local friends and also wired up the house so that it was
the first in the district to benefit from electric lighting.
1900: He experimented
with developing a glider which flew from the top of the house.
1914: Graduated
form University. He repeatedly tried to enlist in the army during
the First World War, but due to his physical ill-health he was refused.
1920: Visited Trinidad
in the West Indies.
1922: Became ill
and was forced to leave his work as an engineer for the Clyde Valley
Electric Power Company. Worked on his first ideas (which may have
been founded whilst he was at university) on television, first in
Folkestone and then in Hastings.
1924: His first
prototype "Television" was first displayed at Selfridges
Department Store in London.
1925: The first
human face, that of his office assistant William Taynton appeared
on a television screen.
1926: (26th January)
Unveiled his first fully working mechanical television at the Royal
Institution in London which he had been working on from his small
laboratory in Soho, London. This was hailed as the first true television.
1927: Sent television
pictures by cable form London to Glasgow.
1928: Transmitted
a signal across the Atlantic from London to New York. He demonstrated
his first colour television pictures. He was also working on radio
waves at the time and developed a system which was to become Radar.
1929: The BBC was
granted a license to transmit television pictures with Baird's 30
line mechanical device.
1930: Televised
pictures on large screens.
1935: Invented Noctovision
which was an instrument able to see images in the dark.
1936: The BBC started
transmitting Baird's 240-line system.
1937: He was dismissed
by the BBC who then favoured the 405 line electric scanning mode
developed by Marconi and EMI.
1938: Visited Australia
with his wife.
1941: Stereoscopic
Colour television became fully developed.
1944: Telechrome,
the first colour mechanical tube was displayed for the first time.
Marriage:
1931 to the concert pianist Margaret Albu.
Places of Interest:
LONDON:
Museum of the Moving Image, Waterloo.
Science Museum.
SUSSEX:
8 Queen's Avenue, Hastings is the site of Baird's
Television laboratory.
Date and Place of Death:
14th June 1946, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England.
Age at Death:
57.
Site of Grave:
Helensburgh, Scotland. Memorial window
in the West Kirk, Colquhoun Square, Helensburgh.
