Marconi Museum |
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visits: Sunday at 10 am
working days on reservation
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 info visits
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In the spring of 1897 Marconi was working for the Post Office experimenting with his invention over increasing distances of five, ten and fifteen kilometres in the Bristol channel. His scientific discovery had been unveiled to the public several months before, but nobody had the slightest idea of how it worked. Emperor Wilhelm II sent a German engineer, Adolf Slaby, to witness one of Marconi's experiments. Slaby was born in Berlin in 1849. Professor, consultant and politician, he brought engineering to an important position during the new Reich. He worked on wireless telegraphy from 1897 to 1903 and although a brief period, he was welcomed as the "German Marconi" and the pioneer of "Funkentelegraphie" (spark telegraphy). The Emperor was a great promoter of wireless telegraphy in Germany because he had a technical and scientific passion for it. He asked Slaby to investigate further into this new technology. After attending Marconi's demonstrations, Slaby decided to launch a research programme at the Technische Hochschule where he worked with Earl Georg von Arco. Slaby devised a system similar to Marconi's - but with features that allowed its independence. He also produced a series of patents and signed a commercial agreement with the company A.E.G. During this time another German scientist, Karl Ferdinand Braun, invented a wireless telegraphic transmission system and struck a deal with Siemens. Therefore in Germany at the beginning of the 1900's there were two competing systems: the A.E.G. Slaby-Arco and the Braun-Siemens. The union of the two companies, favoured by the Emperor, was ratified in May 1903 with the foundation of a new company: Telefunken. From then on Slaby's involvement in wireless telegraphy diminished. During his career he received great honours (although not the Nobel prize that he perhaps hoped for), but he was also criticised for the inaccuracy of his technical explanations. He died from complications due to illness in Berlin, in 1913. In his speech held at the Swedish Royal Academy, Marconi recalled Slaby attending his experiments in Bristol. But many years later however, he regretted having been forced to invite the German professor. This behaviour several years after Slaby's death was quite unusual for a tactful person like Marconi. Perhaps he was exhausted by the long competition that took place between the Marconi Company and its German competitors at the beginning of the 1900's.
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William Preece received Guglielmo Marconi at the General Post Office in London in 1896. That moment marked the beginning of the Bolognese inventor's public career. In order for a young unknown Italian scientist to be taken seriously, the mediation of an authoritative figure was needed. Alan Campbell-Swinton was undoubtedly that person, taking it upon himself to write a letter of presentation for Marconi and addressing it to Preece. Born in Kimmerghame (Scotland) in 1863, after his studies in Edinburgh and a year in France, Campbell-Swinton moved to Newcastle in 1882 for an engineering internship. Having ascertained his interests and sharpened his skills in the field of electricity, he decided to settle in London and start up his own Company. In 1896 he was the first to experiment radiography for medical use. In 1903 he began to design a television prototype, utilizing the Braun tube. The following year he closed his Company and dedicated himself entirely to his research. After a few years, in 1908, he announced on “Nature” that a new system of communication - “Distant Electric Vision” - was about to see the light. In 1911 he outlined in great detail an electronic scanning television system, specifying that a few ulterior technical acquisitions were needed for the realization. As an engineer he worked for the W T. Henley Telegraph Works Company, the Charles Parsons’s Marine Steam Turbine Company, and the Crompton Parkinson, Ltd., of which he also became the director. He held numerous prestigious positions in the most important scientific and cultural institutions of the United Kingdom. In the meantime, the advent of broadcasting had incentivized research and experimental transmissions also in the field of television, thanks especially to the electromechanical system devised in 1925 by another Scottish inventor, John Baird. Two years after Campbell-Swinton's death (London, 1930), Tedham and McGee developed a purely electronic system based on his theories, which thereby found their confirmation 21 years after being formulated. A couple of years later, the BBC decided to officially adopt the electronic system Marconi-EMI. Guglielmo Marconi, through his Company, had thus ideally settled the debt of gratitude toward Campbell-Swinton.
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© 2013 - Fondazione Guglielmo Marconi - Villa Griffone - via Celestini 1 - 40037 Pontecchio Marconi (BO) - C.F 80063250379