Larchfield School and Boyhood

Age 11, Baird attended Larchfield School. Whilst he didn’t enjoy his days at Larchfield, his interest in science and technology was already showing. While at school he purchased a camera, for which he designed a remote control. He also enjoyed other pursuits:
‘I remember one of our favourite outlets for activity was career­ing from the top to the bottom of one of the main roads on soap-boxes mounted on wheels. These “bogie” races down the steep slope on which Helensburgh is built were dangerous enough even in pre-motor days, but no serious accidents ever occurred.’

Royal Technical College

Baird starts at the Royal Technical College in Glasgow (now the University of Strathclyde) straight from Larchfield, graduating in 1914. He went on to take further classes at the University of Glasgow.

Baird Undersock Company

Baird suffered from chronic cold feet due to poor circulation, and had been using newspaper under his socks to keep his feet dry. This gave him the idea for The Baird Undersock, a ‘medicated’ sock dipped in Borax, to be worn under the ordinary sock. He advertised them in innovative ways: for example sandwich board women (until then businesses had used only men) and a plywood mock-up of an army tank. The motto was ‘for the soldier’s foot‘. If he discovered that a shop was not stocking his Undersocks, he would send his friends in to attempt to purchase them, with the result that the shop would conclude that they must be a popular item and so ordered them!

Early Experiments in Television

Baird begins researching and experimenting with television full-time. For this he made his own Nipkow discs to scan the image that he wished to send by wireless. These discs are circular and flat, with a spiral of holes, glass lenses, and even small lightbulbs were briefly used for the discs that would show the pictures (as seen above). The faster they revolved, the better they were at reproducing moving as opposed to still images.
To succeed with television Baird realised that strong light was essential. He tried to produce this by wiring up a network of batteries. This led to a 1000 volt electric shock, burnt hands, and a small explosion, and Baird was evicted from his laboratory in Hastings, moving his appartus and equipment to two small attic rooms at 22 Frith Street in Soho, London. (Pictured, Baird at work in his Hastings laboratory in 1924).

Selfridges and Stookie Bill

In March 1925 Baird made the first public demonstration of televised images in motion at Selfridges in London, however these were very basic, showing only a dark mask with two white eyes and a mouth; one of the eyes ‘winking’ on cue at customers. Only one person at at time could look down a funnel to see the image.
Baird had to use so many lights, and they gave off so much heat, that it was uncomfortable for a person to sit close to them. The solution was to use a ventriloquist’s dummy’s head. Baird gave the puppet the name of Stookie Bill, and in fact there were a number of Stookie Bills – one was destroyed after the intense heat in an experiment with infra-red light caused his hair to catch fire!

Not just television!

Baird was incredibly productive. In 1926 he took out a patent very similar to radar – there is still a big debate about Baird’s role in the invention of radar. Other patents in the same year included Noctovision (an infra-red television system), encompassing a significant development in fibre optics and Phonovision (the world’s first video recordings). In total he was granted 177 patents over a period of 24 years – approximately seven a year.

Distance Transmission

Baird Television Development Company floated on the Stock Exchange. On the same day, News broke of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company’s (AT&T) demonstration of TV by sending pictures from Washington to New York over the telephone lines – using Baird’s “flying spot” technique for scanning.
Not to be outdone, on 24 May 1927, Baird sent pictures by telephone from London to the Central Hotel, Glasgow – twice the distance from Washington to New York.

Colour Television

Baird made the first public demonstration of colour television. The system used a revolving disc that alternated blue, green and red filters, and images of flowers and strawberries were used.
The technology of the field-sequential colour system developed by Baird in 1928 went on to be used in the television camera on the Apollo 11 Moon mission in 1969. Electronic colour cameras at that time were too big and heavy to go in the lunar module, so engineers used the earlier mechanical system to produce a smaller, low power camera.

Filming Outdoors

During 1928 Baird worked on television in ordinary daylight. He is pictured here with his lifelong friend Jack Buchanan, who, acting as the test subject, is sitting in the deckchair. Buchanan grew up on the same street as Baird and went on to become an international star of stage and screen. During his lifetime Jack Buchanan was a financial backer of JLB, and after JLB’s death Jack ensured that the new owners of John Logie Baird Ltd continued to pay a pension to his widow, Margaret Baird.

Electronic Television

US inventor Philo T. Farnsworth demonstrates the first electronic television transmission to the press, with the first live human images transmitted by this method in 1929. At this time, a similar but not identical all-electronic television was also being developed by the Russian-American engineer Vladimir Zworykin, who worked for Westinghouse and then later for RCA (Radio Corporation of America).

TV Takes Off

In April 1930 Baird puts television in 10 Downing Street, receiving a letter of thanks from Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald.
On 14 July 1930, the first BBC-produced British television drama was transmitted: Pirandello’s The Man with a Flower in his Mouth.

8 May 1931 was the world’s first outside broadcast of people in the street outside Baird’s studio.

High-Definition Television

Baird’s company demonstrated High Definition Television (240 lines), using mechanical television systems developed by Baird as well as Farnsworth’s tube from the US – Farnsworth and Baird had first met in 1932 when Farnsworth visited Baird whilst in England.

Coronation

First major electronic television outside broadcast: the coronation of King George VI.
9,000 TV sets are sold in the London area.

Baird’s Memoir

In the summer of 1941, John Logie Baird entered Tempsford Hall, a health resort/country hospital in Bedfordshire, to recover from a serious heart attack sustained on May 13th of that year. He stayed there for about 3 months and was initially bored until a fellow patient persuaded him to begin work on his autobiography. This was not fully completed, and was not published until 1988 under the title Sermons, Soap and Television, which was later updated by his son Malcolm as Television and Me – available as an ebook

3-D Colour TV

Baird gave the first demonstration of electronic high definition stereoscopic (3-D) television in colour.

Death of JLB

In February 1946 Baird suffered a stroke, and he passed away on 14 June aged just 57 at his home in Bexhill-on-Sea in East Sussex, only one week after television broadcasts had restarted after the war.
He is buried in Helensburgh Cemetery.