The website www.bairdtelevision.com is about John Logie Baird (1888-1946), the Scotsman who was the first person in the world to demonstrate a working television system, in January 1926. This was a viable system using mechanical picture scanning, with electronic amplification at the transmitter and at the receiver. It could be sent over ordinary telephone lines and by radio, leading to an historic transmission of television from London to New York in February 1928.
This site provides information not only on J.L.Baird and his life work, but also on other pioneers of television and on the development of the television industry down to the present day. The NEWS section is on recent events, anniversaries, publications etc. concerning Baird. The CONTENTS section gives access to a gallery of longer articles, some of which go back as far as the 1920s. At the end of the CONTENTS section there are LINKS to other websites on television history.
Updates are made to the site every few months by its creators Iain L.Baird and Malcolm H.I.Baird who are, respectively, the grandson and the son of J.L.Baird.
What's new at Bairdtelevision.com?
(Last updated April 6th, 2009)
Inventor of the TV set for the big screen
(1) UK Press Release, October 7 2008. Words: Rachel Corcoran
Over 90 years after the invention of television, the story of its often-overlooked creator John Logie Baird, is to be immortalised on film for the first time.
United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland (Press Release) October 7, 2008 -- The story of TV inventor John Logie Baird is to be made in to a feature length film. The Scottish engineer, who died in 1946 aged 57, was ahead of his time from an early age as he dreamt of sending moving pictures through the air. JLB (as he was known) fought for recognition of his first working television set despite problems with his health, espionage and a sceptical BBC.
JLB was the first in the world to demonstrate a working television in January 1926 at his laboratory in London's Soho. Just two years later, he presented the first colour transmission and changed the world forever.
JLB's son Malcolm, whose mother Margaret was one of two influential women in his father's life, is to consult on the movie alongside Jan Leman, writer and director of the BBC documentary, JLB – The Man Who Saw The Future. It's to be made by Firefly Films, who are behind the upcoming Boogie Woogie and much-anticipated Beslan.
"The family of John Logie Baird is delighted that Firefly is going ahead with a film project based on my father," says Malcolm, who now lives in Canada and has openly criticised the standard of TV programmes today. "Television has had a huge impact and my father's life was full of drama on the technical, personal and business sides so we're looking forward to the film's development."
Adds Jan, "I began researching the life of JLB in the early 1990's and decided there was little point in attempting to dramatize his incredible story until the facts were properly gathered. Over the next decade, alongside expert researchers led by Malcolm Baird, much of the accepted wisdom about JLB was rightfully challenged, and found to be wanting. What has been revealed is far more dramatic than anything you could ever make up."
"JLB was a quiet, driven, scientific genius who overcame extraordinary obstacles to achieve an astonishing 178 patents in a 20-year career that lie at the heart of every major technology you can think of. At his side were two remarkable women, but his real mistress was invention. He's now rightly described as the central figure in the history of television."
The film is set to be a predominately Scottish production – Jan and Malcolm are both of Scottish descent as is screenwriter James W. Mitchell who will pen the Untitled John Logie Baird Biopic. It's to be based on the biography John Logie Baird: A Life by Malcolm Baird and Antony Kamm and there is already speculation as to who might be cast in the lead role; James McAvoy and Ewan McGregor being obvious suitors.
Filming is not due to start until 2010.
(2) News item, December 26 2008
On December 6-10 2008, preliminary meetings were held in Scotland between executive producer Matthew Hobbs, screenwriter James Mitchell, Jan Leman and Malcolm Baird.
* Beyond the Surface; The story of A H Sommer the Father of Photoelectricity is under production by Richard and Ketty Tomes and further information will be released as it becomes available. Alfred Sommer joined Baird Television Ltd. in 1935 after having fled from Germany.
John Logie Baird's Last Projects
Click above to read Douglas Brown and Malcolm Baird's recent article in the British Vintage Wireless Society Bulletin about the projects that occupied J.L. Baird in the last few months of his life. They included projection television for cinemas, and 28-inch cathode ray tube receivers, producing TV pictures which were far larger than anything else available at the time.
John Logie Baird Awards
The John Logie Baird Awards for Innovation were relaunched on June 10th at a public event in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. The programme had originally been started in 1988, Baird’s centennial year, but for financial reasons it was closed in 2002. The relaunch has been organized by the GO Group, based in Glasgow. They have have secured several major partners. The keynote speaker at the relaunch event was Iain Logie Baird, curator of television at the National Media Museum in Bradford. He talked about the difficulties faced by his grandfather in the early days of television and he called for a more encouraging attitude towards innovators, on the part of the business and investment community. On December 10, 2008 Malcolm and Jean Baird were guests at a gala dinner in Glasgow where winners in 6 categories were each presented with awards.
Details of the awards are to be found on the website: http://www.johnlogiebairdawards.co.uk
Anniversaries in 2009:
80th: On September 30th 1929 the BBC began experimental television broadcasts using the Baird 30 line system. The studio was at the Baird Television Company office in 133 Long Acre. Programmes were sent out via the BBC’s regular medium wave channel, using the Baird 30-line system. The experimental broadcasts were continued until 1935.
70th: On September 1 1939, two days before Britain declared war on Germany, the BBC was ordered to shut down its television service. Television set manufacturers including Baird Television Ltd., went out of business. However, Baird continued his research at his own expense, working on TV in colour, 3 dimensions, and large screen displays.
65th: In August 1944, Baird introduced his “Telechrome” cathode ray tube for showing colour television. It was the first colour cathode ray tube in the world.
50th: In September 1959 The John Baird pub was opened at Muswell Hill, near Alexandra Palace, site of the BBC’s first high definition transmitter. This was the first of 4 pubs to be named after JLB (see Gallery, “Down the pub with John Logie Baird”).
Book Reviews by Malcolm Baird
Reviews of recent books about John Reith(2007) and Leonard Frank Plugge(2008), and a technical book on three-dimensional imaging are obtainable through links shown in the Gallery.
Large Screen 3D TV from the BBC and Sky after 64 years
Recently a Scotland vs. England rugby match was shown on large-screen 3D television at the old Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, West London. As reported in the sports section of The Times of March 11 2008, the viewing audience wore special polarized glasses to get the 3D effect. In his jokey style the reporter seemed to say that the show was impressive. More recently, the Daily Mail of December 19 2008 reported that Sky Television will soon be introducing its 3D programmes.
This technology was first developed and patented by John Logie Baird in World War II at his private laboratory in London, while the German bombs were falling. A full-page description of Baird's 3D television appeared in the Illustrated London News on May 9th 1942. In his 1944 testimony to Lord Hankey’s commission on postwar television development, Baird had recommended the early use of 3D technology in broadcast programmes. Baird’s recommendation has been followed after 64 years, which seems like quite a long time to wait.
Images Across Space – a new book on television history coming soon
The author of Images Across Space, Dr.Douglas Brown, is Director of the Strathclyde Science and Technology Forum at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. His book is based on extensive research over the past 20 years and it covers not only the work of John Logie Baird but also the many other television pioneers including Rosing, Dieckmann, Campbell-Swinton, von Ardenne, Zworykin and Farnsworth. Coverage also includes the competition in 1934-36 between Marconi-EMI and Baird Television Ltd.(BTL) for the contract for the BBC television system. Although BTL lost the competition, the company’s research on electronic television (for example by Constantin Szhego and Dr. Alfred Sommer) had considerable impact on the British war effort in World War II, and on television developments in the USA. Much of this information has not hitherto been published. The book contains a full listing of television patents by J.L.Baird and by BTL. Publication is expected soon, through Middlesex University Technical Resources.
Baird Court in Bexhill-on-Sea
Despite local protests, the house where John Logie Baird died in June 1946 has been demolished to make way for a block of modern flats. However, the new development by Laing Homes is to be known as Baird Court, and its architectural style (at left) is modeled on that of the original house. An article by Malcolm Baird on his father’s last 18 months in Bexhill has been added to the Gallery.
Recent books on people in J.L. Baird’s circle
John Logie Baird was a public figure during the second half of his life and his circle included many interesting people who were also public figures. Several of these are mentioned in recently published books which are noted below.
Kew Edwin Shelley (1894-1964)
Mr.Shelley was a London barrister who helped Baird to form a new television company in 1944 and later became co-executor of his estate. Shelley was a paternal grandson of Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee (1844-1906) who had been the first president of the Indian National Congress. In 1921 Shelley had changed his surname from Bonnerjee by deed poll. His background is detailed in Family History, by Janaki Agnes Penelope Majumdar (edited by Antoinette Burton, published 2003, Oxford University Press). In her memoir, written in 1935, Mrs.Majumdar provides a personal account of two distinguished anglophile Indian families.
William Le Queux (1869-1927)
Le Queux was a phenomenally successful spy story writer of the early 20th century and his writings are said to have led to the formation of MI5. He was living in Hastings while Baird was doing his early television experiments and he gave moral (but not financial) encouragement. A detailed biography, William Le Queux, Master of Mystery, has been written by Chris Patrick and Stephen Baister and privately published by them in 2007.
John C.W.Reith, (1889-1971)
Sir John Reith was Director General of the BBC while Baird and his company were trying to convince the BBC to broadcast television. In a new memoir entitled My father, Reith of the BBC,(2006, St.Andrew Press, Edinburgh), Marista Leishman provides a unique view of her father’s prickly and eccentric personality, against the backdrop of his public achievements and eventual elevation to the peerage. This book confirms that Reith did not like television, though his personal relationship with Baird was not as bad as has sometimes been alleged.
Leonard Frank Plugge (1889-1981)
Mr. Plugge was a pioneer of commercial radio broadcasting to the UK in the 1920s and 1930s, when such programmes were transmitted from continental Europe for legal reasons. He first met Baird in the Hastings days and they met frequently in London during World War II, when Plugge was an M.P. and chairman of the Parliamentary Scientific Committee. A biography of Plugge entitled: And the World Listened -- Leonard Frank Plugge, by Keith Wallis, (Kelly Books, UK) appeared in March 2008 and a review is given on this website. (see above)
John Logie Baird: a life
hardback * c. 450 pages * 70 b/w illustrations
...a meticulously researched story based on first hand interviews and quoting many new documentary sources, some of which have only recently become available. At long last we have a book that sounds and feels like the truth about the man who was the first in the world to demonstrate working television (Michael Bennett-Levy, 2002)...click here for the rest of the review
"Kamm and Baird, the latter the inventor's son, paint a strikingly clear portrait of the inventor who started it all." (Russell A Potter, The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television (US) 2004)
Read the full text of the JLB promotional brochure here
Television and Me: The Memoirs of John Logie Baird
paperback * c. 160 pages * heavily illustrated
The autobiography of John Logie Baird. A new version of his memoirs, only published previously as a specialist monograph, are written with blunt candour and caustic wit. His memoirs cover the wild escapades of his early business career and the dramatic pioneering days of his scientific work.
"Television and Me" was named Critic's choice, Scottish book of the year 2004.
Excerpt: Baird's Story is Pick of the Best
(Scottish Daily Mail, Jan. 7th, 2005) by Tom Kyle
It is rare indeed to find a book of real literary, scientific and historical importance.
So the appearance in the spring of the little-known and almost unpublished, autobiography of the most influential Scot who ever lived was the most significant publishing event of the year. Television and Me: The Memoirs of John Logie Baird ... was living proof that the best books need not always be the most lavish or expensive.
Baird tells his own story - from his Helensburgh boyhood to the great and precarious days when the first television pictures were transmitted, to his ultimate betrayal by the BBC - with a caustic turn of phrase and a self-deprecating wit.
His memoir is a fabulous distillation of all the joy and bitterness, hurt and humour of an extraordinary man. I said at the time I doubted there would be a better written, more interesting or more important book published in 2004. I see no reason to revise that opinion now.
The Scots Magazine, September 2004
"...Baird was not given the recognition which was his by right during his lifetime."
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