GUGLIELMO MARCONI 1874

Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy on April 25^th 1874, to an Italian father and an Irish mother. His mother was Annie Jameson whose family owned the Jameson Whiskey Distillery in County Wexford.

His work on Rathlin Island and in Ballycastle covered a relatively short period from June 4 to September 2, 1898, Marconi himself visited for four days during that time. The experimental work was carried out by his assistant George Kemp, who was in turn assisted by Edward Glanville. Also employed was John Cecil from Rathlin Island. They carried out experimental transmissions between the east lighthouse on Rathlin Island and the ‘White Lodge’ house situated at the harbor in Ballycastle. In doing so they created the historical link between the town and the pioneering developments that were taking place in ‘wireless telegraphy’.

Heinrich Hertz who died in 1894, had discovered that electro-magnetic waves existed in the air and that these could be detected over short distances. Sir William Crookes also predicted that these same electro-magnetic waves could be used for communication. Marconi had studied physics and took inspiration from the work of Hertz. He carried out a series of practical experiments in wireless telegraphy in Italy. Although Sir Oliver Lodge and Dr Alexander Muirhead claimed to have sent a ‘wireless’ signal between two Oxford buildings in 1894, it was Marconi who registered the first patent of this technology. Sir Oliver Lodge had developed a more efficient way of picking up these electro-magnetic signals than Hertz in the ‘Branley coherer’ and Marconi developed this ability a step further. In 1885, Captain H. B. Jackson (Royal Navy) had also succeeded in transmitting a ‘wireless’ signal the length of a ship which rang a bell, and later in 1886 from ship to ship within the confines of an harbor. Repeating what Marconi had already done in 1894, Jackson later met Marconi during experiments on the Salisbury Plain. At the time many scientist were working in the same field, but it was Marconi who had realized the potential of the discovery, which led him to register Patent No. 12039, on June 2, 1896 ‘with specification for a ‘wireless’ system using Hertzian waves’.

Some of his landmarks achievements are as follows:
1894 -- Italy - first demonstrated the transmission of ‘wireless’ signals to sound a bell across a room.
1895 -- Italy - successfully demonstrated signal transmission and reception over a 2 km distance across fields.
1896 -- England - came to London and registered his patent.
        - demonstrated transmission and reception on Salisbury Plain using an aerial developed by the Russian Prof. Alexander Popoff.   Captain H. B. Jackson was present along with the chief engineer of the General Post Office and also representatives of the British Army.
1897-- England - achieved a range of 7 km transmission and reception on Salisbury Plain
         - achieved a new record distance of 14 km when he sent a message across the Bristol Channel from Flat Holm, Weston-super-Mare to Lavernock Point, Cardiff
        - set up an aerial on the grounds of the Royal Needles Hotel, Alum Bay, Isle of Wight and communicated with two hired ferries and later with another station set up in the Medeira House, Bournmouth
       - Italy - communicated from La Spezia, Italy with the armored cruiser ‘San Martino’ a distance of 11 miles
      - England - with his cousin Jameson Davis, he first registered his company as The Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company.
1898 -- Ireland - transmission and reception between Rathlin Island and Ballycastle under commission by Lloyds of London
      - sent the world’s first live ‘wireless’ report of a yacht race from a ship called ‘The Flying Huntress’ to a shore station at Kingstown (Dublin). This brought immense publicity and interest for Marconi work and its commercial and military potential.
1899 -- England - The Goodwin Lightship which had been installed with a transmitter was rammed in heavy fog by the S.S. 'R.F. Mathews.' It was able to send the first ‘live saving’ signal from sea, for the assistance of two lifeboats.
1901 -- sent a signal 198 miles between the Isle of Wight and Lizard Point, Cornwall
        -- defying critics and the opinions of the scientific world he sent a signal around the curvature of the earth, from Poldhu, Cornwall to Signal Hill, St John’s, Newfoundland.
1918 -- first signal from England to Australia .

These are just a few of the scores of events and achievements during his lifetime.

How or why Marconi came to Ballycastle to undertake the trails for Lloyds is not completely clear. It was certainly related to the fact that ‘wireless telegraphy’ promised to become the most important development in tracking incoming and outgoing vessels. The possibility had come of age when, with Marconi equipped stations all along the coast. All vessels within twenty-five miles of shore could make their presence known and send or receive communications. So apparent were the advantages of such a system that Lloyds in May 1898, entered into negotiations for the setting up of Marconi instruments at various Lloyds stations; and preliminary trial were commissioned between Rathlin Island and Ballycastle.

Marconi went on to develop short wave radio, the basis for most long distance communications before satellite. He was also awarded a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909 and on his death in 1937 was given a state funeral in his hometown of Bologne.