In September 2015 the University Library, with generous financial assistance from an anonymous donor, purchased a very important part of the John Logie Baird Story; the Baird/Clapp archive. An event will be held on Thursday 14 April to celebrate the procurement of these historical items.  We will be joined by a series of speakers and we will have a very special exhibition of archival materials on display.

Date: Thursday 14 April 2016
Time: 6.00pm
Location: Sir Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre

Register here

About John Logie Baird

Between November 1926 and April 1927 – John Logie Baird and his assistant, Benjamin Clapp developed the idea of rigging up a receiving station and television receiver in America and transmitting pictures over telephone lines from Baird’s laboratories in London, to Clapp’s house in Surrey and from there, by wireless to the East Coast of the United States of America.

They succeeded with the first trans-Atlantic transmission on 9 February 1928.

About the event

At the event there will be a special exhibition display of the archival materials. The archive is comprised of Benjamin Clapp’s radio log books for the USA receiving station and his amateur radio station used in the transmission, related paper ephemera, and a gramophone “Phonovision” disc containing an early video recording made on 20th September 1927.

It is the only known Phonovision disc which depicts images of ‘Stookie Bill’, one of Baird’s famous ventriloquist dummies, and is the earliest Phonovision disc in existence, and thus the world’s earliest surviving video recording.

We will be joined by three speakers:

Iain Logie Baird, John Logie Baird’s grandson and Associate Curator at the National Media Museum, Bradford who will speak on his grandfather and his invention.

Don McLean, the Glasgow science graduate and electrical engineer who successful transferred the images from the Phonovision, a major achievement.

Professor Scott Roy, Professor of Electronics, Electronic and Nanoscale Engineering at the University of Glasgow.

There will be a Q&A Session after the lecture followed by refreshments in the foyer.  We expect this event to be very popular and would advise you register early to avoid disappointment.

First published: 4 April 2016

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