Guglielmo
Marconi was born at Bologna, Italy, on April 25, 1874, the second son of Giuseppe
Marconi, an Italian country gentleman, and Annie Jameson, daughter of Andrew Jameson
of Daphne Castle in the County Wexford, Ireland. He was educated privately at
Bologna, Florence and Leghorn. Even as a boy he took a keen interest in physical
and electrical science and studied the works of Maxwell, Hertz, Righi, Lodge and
others. In 1895 he began laboratory experiments at his father's country estate
at Pontecchio where he succeeded in sending wireless signals over a distance of
one and a half miles.
In 1896 Marconi took his apparatus to England
where he was introduced to Mr. (later Sir) William Preece, Engineer-in-Chief of
the Post Office, and later that year was granted the world's first patent for
a system of wireless telegraphy. He demonstrated his system successfully in London,
on Salisbury Plain and across the Bristol Channel, and in July 1897 formed The
Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company Limited (in 1900 re-named Marconi's Wireless
Telegraph Company Limited). In the same year he gave a demonstration to the Italian
Government at Spezia where wireless signals were sent over a distance of twelve
miles. In 1899 he established wireless communication between France and England
across the English Channel. He erected permanent wireless stations at The Needles,
Isle of Wight, at Bournemouth and later at the Haven Hotel, Poole, Dorset.
In 1900 he took out his famous patent No. 7777 for "tuned or syntonic telegraphy"
and, on an historic day in December 1901, determined to prove that wireless waves
were not affected by the curvature of the Earth, he used his system for transmitting
the first wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall, and St.
John's, Newfoundland, a distance of 2100 miles.
Between 1902 and
1912 he patented several new inventions. In 1902, during a voyage in the American
liner "Philadelphia", he first demonstrated "daylight effect" relative to wireless
communication and in the same year patented his magnetic detector which then became
the standard wireless receiver for many years. In December 1902 he transmitted
the first complete messages to Poldhu from stations at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia,
and later Cape Cod, Massachusetts, these early tests culminating in 1907 in the
opening of the first transatlantic commercial service between Glace Bay and Clifden,
Ireland, after the first shorter-distance public service of wireless telegraphy
had been established between Bari in Italy and Avidari in Montenegro. In 1905
he patented his horizontal directional aerial and in 1912 a "timed spark" system
for generating continuous waves.
In 1914 he was commissioned in the
Italian Army as a Lieutenant being later promoted to Captain, and in 1916 transferred
to the Navy in the rank of Commander. He was a member of the Italian Government
mission to the United States in 1917 and in 1919 was appointed Italian plenipotentiary
delegate to the Paris Peace Conference. He was awarded the Italian Military Medal
in 1919 in recognition of his war service.
During his war service
in Italy he returned to his investigation of short waves, which he had used in
his first experiments. After further tests by his collaborators in England, an
intensive series of trials was conducted in 1923 between experimental installations
at the Poldhu Station and in Marconi's yacht "Elettra" cruising in the Atlantic
and Mediterranean, and this led to the establishment of the beam system for long
distance communication. Proposals to use this system as a means of Imperial communications
were accepted by the British Government and the first beam station, linking England
and Canada, was opened in 1926, other stations being added the following year.
In 1931 Marconi began research into the propagation characteristics of
still shorter waves, resulting in the opening in 1932 of the world's first microwave
radiotelephone link between the Vatican City and the Pope's summer residence at
Castel Gandolfo. Two years later at Sestri Levante he demonstrated his microwave
radio beacon for ship navigation and in 1935, again in Italy, gave a practical
demonstration of the principles of radar, the coming of which he had first foretold
in a lecture to the American Institute of Radio Engineers in New York in 1922.
He has been the recipient of honorary doctorates of several universities
and many other international honours and awards, among them the Nobel Prize for
Physics, which in 1909 he shared with Professor Karl Braun, the Albert Medal of
the Royal Society of Arts, the John Fritz Medal and the Kelvin Medal. He was decorated
by the Tsar of Russia with the Order of St. Anne, the King of Italy created him
Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus, and awarded him the Grand
Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy in 1902. Marconi also received the freedom
of the City of Rome (1903), and was created Chevalier of the Civil Order of Savoy
in 1905. Many other distinctions of this kind followed. In 1914 he was both created
a Senatore in the Italian Senate and app ointed Honorary Knight Grand Cross of
the Royal Victorian Order in England. He received the hereditary title of Marchese
in 1929.
In 1905 he married the Hon. Beatrice O'Brien, daughter of
the 14th Baron Inchiquin, the marriage being annulled in 1927, in which year he
married the Countess Bezzi-Scali of Rome. He had one son and two daughters by
his first and one daughter by his second wife. His recreations were hunting, cycling
and motoring.
Marconi died in Rome on July 20, 1937.
From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.