Today MCI celebrates the live of one of its favourite inventors, John Logie Baird. Not only was he an inventor extraordinaire, but also an electrical engineer and innovator. The best bit was that he was also Scottish, just like MCI. He was born in Helensburgh in Dunbartonshire and, after he passed, his body was returned to Helensburgh to be buried with his family. He went to the University of Glasgow, but was unable to graduate as the degree course he was attending was interrupted by the First World War. In addition, his time in Glasgow during the industrial revolution also badly affected his health and he was classified as unfit for active duty when he applied for the army. Despite all this, he was to make an epic breakthrough with an invention that would change all our lives forever – the television.
Logie Baird had to move to Hastings (which is by the sea) for his health in 1923 and there he began work in a workshop he rented in town. Amazingly, using everyday items like scissors, a hatbox, a bike light lens, daring needles, glue and sealing wax, amongst other things, he was able to make a prototype capable of transmitting moving silhouette images. What a remarkable man.
After a bad electric shock which burnt Logie Baird’s hand, he moved to London to market his new product. His invention was met with some scepticism. When he went to the Daily Express, the news editor said, ‘For God’s sake, go down to reception and get rid of a lunatic who’s down there. He says he’s got a machine for seeing by wireless! Watch him—he may have a razor on him’. These setbacks didn’t stop the conviction that Logie Baird had in his television set. Finally, in 1926, in Selfridges department store in London (which you can still visit today), he gave his first public demonstration. We can only imagine how the shoppers at Selfridges reacted to this new technology! By 1928, the first colour broadcast was made.
Here’s to the visionary who kept going despite the difficulties and nay-sayers. He was a man who stuck by his invention and realised it’s potential. I wonder what he would have made of modern television….
Have a great weekend everyone and think of John Logie Baird when you sit down to watch the TV this weekend.