John Logie Baird ( / ˈ l oʊ ɡ i b ɛər d / ; 13 August 1888 – 14 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who showed the world’s first mechanical television system on 26 January 1926. He later created the first publicly demonstrated color television system and the first working electronic color television picture tube.
In 1928, the Baird Television Development Company completed the first transatlantic television transmission. Baird’s early technological achievements and his role in making broadcast television available for home use have earned him a notable place in television history.
In 2006, Baird was named one of the 10 greatest Scottish scientists in history and was included in the National Library of Scotland’s "Scottish Science Hall of Fame." In 2015, he was added to the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame. In 2017, IEEE placed a bronze street plaque at 22 Frith Street (Bar Italia), London, to honor Baird and the invention of television. In 2021, the Royal Mint released a John Logie Baird 50p coin to mark the 75th anniversary of his death.
Early years
John Baird was born on August 13, 1888, in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire. He was the youngest of four children. His father was Reverend John Baird, a minister at St Bride's Church in the Church of Scotland. His mother was Jessie Morrison Inglis, who was the niece of the wealthy Inglis family from Glasgow, a family known for building ships.
Baird received his education at Larchfield Academy (now part of Lomond School) in Helensburgh, the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College, and the University of Glasgow. While studying, he worked as an engineering apprentice as part of his training. The difficult conditions in Glasgow’s factories during that time influenced his belief in socialism but also made him sick often. He became an agnostic, though this did not cause problems in his relationship with his father. His studies were interrupted by the First World War, and he never completed his degree.
In early 1915, Baird volunteered to serve in the British Army but was found not fit for active duty. Unable to join the front lines, he began working for the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company, which produced weapons and military supplies.
Television experiments
In early 1923, while not feeling well, Baird moved to 21 Linton Crescent, Hastings, a town on the warmer southern coast of England. Later, he rented a workshop in Queen's Arcade in the same town. Using items like an old hatbox, scissors, darning needles, bicycle light lenses, a used tea chest, sealing wax, and glue, Baird built the world's first working television set. In February 1924, he showed the Radio Times that a semi-mechanical television system could work by sending moving silhouette images. In July of the same year, he received a 1000-volt electric shock and survived with only a burned hand. His landlord then asked him to leave the building.
Soon after arriving in London, Baird visited the Daily Express newspaper offices to promote his invention. The news editor was frightened and told a staff member: "Please go to reception and remove a man who claims he has a machine for seeing through wireless. He might have a razor on him."
To develop a working television system, Baird used the Nipkow disk, a scanning device invented by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow in 1884. Television historian Albert Abramson called Nipkow's patent "the master television patent." Nipkow's work was important because Baird and others later used it to create a broadcast medium.
On 2 October 1925, in his laboratory, Baird successfully sent the first television picture with a greyscale image: the head of a ventriloquist’s dummy named "Stooky Bill" in a 32-line vertically scanned image, showing five pictures per second. He then brought a 20-year-old office worker, William Edward Taynton, to see what a human face looked like. Taynton became the first person to be televised in full tonal detail.
In June 1924, Baird bought thallium sulfide, a chemical developed by Theodore Case in the United States, from Cyril Frank Elwell. This chemical helped create "talking pictures." Baird used thallium sulfide to produce the first live-animated image from reflected light. He improved the signal from the chemical by cooling it and designing his own video amplifier, laying the groundwork for modern technology.
Baird first demonstrated moving silhouette images on television at Selfridges department store in London for three weeks starting on 25 March 1925.
On 26 January 1926, Baird showed the first public demonstration of true television images to members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times in his laboratory at 22 Frith Street in London’s Soho district, where Bar Italia now stands. He initially used a scan rate of 5 pictures per second, later improving it to 12.5 pictures per second around 1927. This was the first demonstration of a television system that could display live moving images with tonal variation.
On 3 July 1928, Baird transmitted the world’s first color television image using scanning discs with three spirals of colored filters and three light sources at the receiving end. That same year, he also demonstrated stereoscopic (3D) television.
In 1927, Baird sent Britain’s first long-distance television pictures over 438 miles (705 km) of telephone lines between London and Glasgow. This was his response to a 225-mile telecast between AT&T Bell Labs stations in New York and Washington, D.C., which had occurred in April 1927.
Baird founded the Baird Television Development Company Ltd. In 1928, the company made the first transatlantic television transmission from London to Hartsdale, New York. In 1929, the BBC began officially broadcasting television programs. In November 1929, Baird and Bernard Natan started France’s first television company, Télévision-Baird-Natan. On 14 July 1930, The Man with the Flower in His Mouth became the first drama shown on UK television. In 1931, the BBC televised The Derby, its first live outside broadcast. In 1930, Baird demonstrated a theatre television system with a screen measuring 2 feet by 5 feet (60 cm by 150 cm) in London, Berlin, Paris, and Stockholm. By 1939, he improved his system to project a boxing match on a screen 15 feet by 12 feet (4.6 meters by 3.7 meters).
From 1929 to 1935, the BBC broadcast television programs using the 30-line Baird system. From 1932 to 1935, the BBC produced programs in its own studios, first at Broadcasting House and later at 16 Portland Place. Additionally, from 1933, Baird and his company broadcast some programs independently from their studios and transmitter at Crystal Palace in south London.
On 2 November 1936, the BBC began alternating Baird’s 240-line transmissions with EMI’s electronic scanning system, which had been improved to 405 lines after a merger with Marconi. At the time, the Baird system used an intermediate film process, where footage was shot on film, rapidly developed, and scanned.
The trial was supposed to last six months, but the BBC stopped using the Baird system in February 1937 after a fire destroyed Baird’s facilities at Crystal Palace. The BBC realized the Baird system was not practical due to the lack of mobility of its cameras, which required developer tanks, hoses, and cables. Competitors like George William Walton and William Stephenson were more successful because their patents supported the early television system used by Scophony Limited, which operated in Britain until WWII and later in the United States. By 1948, Scophony acquired John Logie Baird Ltd.
Baird’s television systems were replaced by the first fully electronic system developed by EMI-Marconi under Sir Isaac Shoenberg. This system included an advanced camera tube (the Emitron) and a hard-vacuum cathode-ray tube for receivers. Philo T. Farnsworth’s electronic "Image Dissector" camera was available to Baird’s company through a patent-sharing agreement. However, the Image Dissector required too much light, so Baird’s company used Farnsworth’s tubes to scan film instead. Farnsworth visited Baird’s Crystal Palace laboratories in 1936 but could not fully solve the problem. A fire later that year further hindered Baird’s company.
After mechanical systems became outdated, Baird contributed to electronic television. In 1939, he demonstrated a hybrid color system using a cathode-ray tube with a rotating disc fitted with color filters, a method later adopted by CBS and RCA in the United States.
As early as 1940, Baird
Other inventions
Some of Baird's early inventions did not work well. In his twenties, he tried to make diamonds by heating graphite, but this did not succeed. Later, he created a glass razor that did not rust, but it broke easily. Inspired by air-filled tires, he tried to make shoes with air pockets, but his first model used balloons that popped. Years later, a similar idea was used in Dr. Martens boots. He also made a thermal undersock, called the Baird undersock, which worked somewhat well. Baird had cold feet, and after testing different designs, he discovered that adding an extra layer of cotton inside the sock helped keep his feet warm.
Between 1926 and 1928, Baird worked on an early video recording device he called Phonovision. The system used a large disk with holes, connected to a machine that cut records. This created a disc that could store a basic video image with 30 lines. However, technical problems stopped further progress. Some of the original Phonovision discs have been saved for study.
Baird also worked on fiber optics, radio direction finding, infrared night vision, and radar. His role in radar development is debated because the UK government has not officially recognized his wartime work. His son, Malcolm Baird, said that in 1926, Baird applied for a patent for a device that used reflected radio waves to form images, a system very similar to radar. At the time, Baird communicated with the British government about this idea. However, some experts say that Baird's "Noctovision" is not radar. Unlike radar (except for a special type called continuous wave radar), Noctovision could not measure the distance to objects or their exact position in three-dimensional space.
Death
From December 1944 until his death on June 14, 1946, Logie Baird lived at 1 Station Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex. He had a stroke in February 1946 and passed away at his home. The house where he lived was removed in 2007, and the area now has apartments called Baird Court. Logie Baird is buried next to his parents in Helensburgh Cemetery, Argyll, Scotland.
Honours and portrayals
The Logie Awards in Australia were named after John Logie Baird because of his role in helping invent television.
John Logie Baird was the only person honored after he died on the show This Is Your Life. Eamonn Andrews recognized him at the BBC Television Theatre in 1957.
In 2014, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) added John Logie Baird to The Honor Roll. This group honors people who were not given Honorary Membership during their lifetimes but whose work would have deserved such an honor.
In 2023, actor John MacKay played the role of John Logie Baird in both the ITV series Nolly and the Doctor Who episode "The Giggle."
Legacy
In 2013, Historic Environment Scotland gave a plaque to honor Logie Baird. It is located in Helensburgh.