CAREER LINKED WITH WIRELESS DEVELOPMENT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 157, 21 July 1937, Page 3

CAREER LINKED WITH WIRELESS DEVELOPMENT

' Known .the world over for his work ;in the development of wireless, Guglielmo Marconi was born at Bologna in 1874, the son of an Irish woman, and educated at Leghorn under Professor Eosa. He then attended Bologna Uni•versity. The first experiments in connection with his system of wireless telegraphy were carried out there and later tested with success between :Penarth and Weston. There followed trials by the Italian Ministry of Marine at Spezia. In 1899 Marconi established wireless communication between France and England across the English Channel, His system is now used exclusively by Lloyds and principal shipping companies iu England and abroad as well as by the British and. Italian Admiralties in their respective navies and at various land stations. He was the first to receive messages transmitted by his system in 1901 across the Atlantic Ocean from Poldhu, Cornwall, to St. John's, Newfoundland, a distance of 2100 miles, a f urther demonstration of the remarkable potentialities of the new method of communication was the occasion when he handed to their Majesties the Tzar of Eussia and Eing of Italy, at Kronstadt, wireless 41 telegrams on board the Italian cruiser Carlo Alberto during her voyage from England to Eussia and in Kronstadt harbour in 1902. Later in the same; year he received at Gibraltar and in; various parts of the Mediterranean j wireless messages transmitted directi from Cornwall. In December, 1902, he' was able to announce the establishment; of a wireless telegraph serViee between! Canada and England, f ormal congratulatory messages being "sent from the Governor-General of Canada and from Marconi to the King of England and from Marconi to the King of Italy. a few weeks later an addjtional channel was opened between United States and England. He was decorated by the Czar with the Order of St. Anne, ereated by the King of Italy Commander Grand Cross of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus and received the freedom of the city of Eome. Maconi inaugurated in 1904 on e.m.s. Campania the first ocean daily newspaper, entitled the Cunard Daily builetin, and similar services are now provided on all ships of any size. An offshoot of the Marconi system is the direction finding wireless now largely used by steamers and aireraft as an aid to navigation. In 1907 he established trans-Atlantic wireless Bervices for public use between England and North America. The Nobel Prize for physics was awarded him in the same year. Additional decorations that he 'had received were: Chevalier of , the Civil Order of Savoy, Grand Cross of the Order of Alphonso xii., Grand Gordon of the Order of the Eising Sun, and the Albert Medal. In 1914 he was awarded an honorary g.c.y.o., previously having been made an honorary Doctor of Science of Oxford University, ll.d. of Glasgow University, and m. Inst. c.e. He was an Italian senator and was president of the Eeale Accademia d'ltalig since 1930. He had also been rector of St. Andrew's University since 1934. he married twiee and had one son and two daughters.