The Radio Inventor’s Company

I am standing in front of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company in Chelmsford, a suburb of London. This company was established in 1897. Initially, this company was called the Wireless Telegraph Signal Company. In March 1897, Great Britain gave this company a patent and registered it. The company started its work on July 20 of the same year. It was founded in the very building where I am now in Hall Street, North East London.

The following year, sound waves were transmitted from one point to another in this building and it was here that the radio was invented. Among the inventions that made radio and television possible here was the thermionic tube, also known as the thermionic valve.

It performs basic electronic functions such as amplifications of signals and thermionic emission of electrons from a hot cathode. Non-thermionic vacuum phototubes capture the emission of electrons by the photoelectric effect. Through this, the intensity of light is also detected. Along with this, other objects were invented that turned the impossible into possibilities and science turned infinite human dreams into reality.

Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian citizen. He was born on April 25, 1874 in Marislacci, Italy. He was an electrical engineer. He was the founder and inventor of radio and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909. The German scientist Ferdinand Braun was also a partner in this prize.

Marconi was a self-made entrepreneur, businessman and inventor. Twenty years after he received the Nobel Prize, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy awarded him with royal honours. I am standing where Marconi, the founder of radio, one of the world’s timeless inventions, used to stand outside his house.

The city of Chelmsford is located in the British county of Essex. My relationship with this city is 16 years old. Aftab Ali, the son of my teacher, my mentor and my student, Barkat Bhai, who taught me to walk hungry in the streets and alleys of Karachi, lives here.

Another big town in this county is Southend on the beach. I had already visited Southend 20 times. I travelled from Chelmsford to Cambridge, Oxford and London in 2006. Chelmsford is a thousand years old city. Near this city there are traces of Bronze Age. Here you will also find traces of Stone Age.

In our country it is also called Late Stone Age. Near this city there are also traces of 3150BC. These monuments seem to be contemporaries of ancient Egypt, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. The term Stone Age is derived from the Greek word for ‘new’ and the nearby monuments of this city are reminiscent of the Stone Age.

The Stone Age is divided into nine periods. The first period is called the Zarzian. The duration of this period is from 18,000 to 8,000BCE. The pre-pottery period is counted from 8600BC to 6900BC. Pottery period starts from 5000BC and this period lasts until 7000BC. A new period begins with the name of Hasuna region of Iraq.

We call it Nineveh. Its contemporaries are the imperial period of Iraq, its present state came into being during the reign of Salah al-din Ayyubi on the banks of the River Tigris. This place is 78 miles away from Baghdad.

Contemporary Syria of Nineveh and Samarra is the Halaf civilisation. The period of these civilisations spans from 5,600BC to 7,000BC. In Chelmsford, the market was established in the modern city by the royal decree on September 7, 1199.

The ancient buildings of Chelmsford are worth seeing. Humsford building has a traditional glory. One is surprised to see the administrative centre building. The city council building to some extent presents the view of the Frere Hall in Karachi. Around it is a wide park like Frere Hall. A magnificent shopping centre was built in the city on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012. This building and other similar buildings make Chelmsford the equivalent of London.

Chelmsford Cathedral reminds you of Notre Dame in Paris and Cologne Cathedral in Germany. A novel like The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Paris, 1831, set against the backdrop of Notre Dame in Paris, is not written against the backdrop of a church in Chelmsford nor do the churchgoers of Cologne near this church hear the kind of music that Beethoven himself and his ancestors used to play to the citizens there. But this cathedral is not inferior to these two churches in its splendor.

This building of the cathedral was built in 1223. This church was rebuilt in the 15th Century. After the construction of this church, new additions were made. The stones used in the construction of the church do not accept the effects of weather.

The Anglican University of Chelmsford is a prestigious institution. Earlier, it was known as the Cambridge School of Art. This institution was founded in 1858 by William John Beamont. At present, 39,400 students are studying in this university.

In addition to the important educational institutions of the United Kingdom, it shares and is affiliated with the universities of Berlin, Budapest, Trinidad, Tobago, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Higher education is imparted in the fields of arts, social sciences, health, medicine, social care, besides science and engineering.

It was about the invention of Marconi, who showed the world the way to a civilisation. Several years after the invention of the radio, the accident of the British passenger ship Titanic shook the whole world. After the accident, the postmaster general of Great Britain called for the survivors of the accident to estimate the damages of the shipwreck.

All the survivors of the accident gave the same statement that they all survived only because of one person and that person was Marconi and his unique invention.

Marconi used to travel between Britain and Italy. In 1914, he was made a senator of Italy. Along with this, he was also awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest honour of Britain. During the World War I, Italy put Marconi in charge of its military radio service. Marconi suffered a severe heart attack and died on July 20, 1937 at the age of 63.

On September 24, 2024, I take a farewell look at the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company building and walk to Aftab Ali’s house in Chelmsford.