Chapter Two: Baird the Business Man

During the time between attending college and university, John Logie Baird carried out a good deal of experimental work in connection with electricity and the construction of selenium cells. This was not, however, carried out in the said institutions respective laboratories, as the regular curriculum precluded the undertaking of original experiments. Instead, Baird experimented in the kitchen of “The Lodge”, where he spent many hours trying to construct a selenium photoelectric cell that many scientists believed would ultimately lead to the invention of television. But like all before him Baird proved to be unsuccessful and he burnt his hands in the process.

For many biographers this was the point in Baird’s life that he gave up his television experimenting for a number of years, turning instead to numerous business ventures, all of which would end in eventual failure. A combination of these failures and poor health would eventually drive Baird back to television experimenting, where, in a Hastings attic in 1922, following a few short months of experimentation, he would finally achieve his goal. However, a revealing article in the 'Daily Express' published on 26th January 1926 states: “He began his experiments in 1912. He met with great difficulties –lack of capital, shortness of time caused by the need to earn a living, and the knowledge that all over the globe, some of the best brains of the scientific world, backed by the possession of splendidly-equipped laboratories and limitless capital, were trying to complete the discovery in front of him. He saved his earnings, however, and worked far into the night, sometimes having to stop his experiments because of the strain.” It can therefore be assumed that although he may have had to give up experimenting from time to time, his research continued from those early days in “The Lodge”, right up to the time that popular history tells us was the fateful date that television was invented.

With the outbreak of war, Baird offered himself for enlistment, but was rejected on the grounds of physical unfitness. Instead he took the position as Superintendent Engineer with the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company. The company supplied electricity to the great shipbuilding yards and munition works which lined the banks of the Clyde, and his work entailed continual attention at all hours of the day and night. Although he held this position until the cessation of hostilities, by the end of the war his health had deteriorated. At that point John Logie Baird determined to give up engineering altogether. With the money he had saved during the war he patented a medicated and self-absorbent sock that he had invented. “The Baird Undersock”, to be worn under the ordinary sock, was said to guarantee cool feet in the summer and warm feet in the winter. In any case, it proved successful enough for Baird to go on and develop a special shoe cleaner called “The Osmo Boot Polish,” and within a year, selling his products directly to local retail chemists, the young Scotsman had built himself a fairly respectful and profitable business.

Just at this time Baird’s health took a turn for the worse, and under the strain and worry of commercial life he sold his business and liquidated his assets. Deciding that what he needed was to live in a warmer climate, Baird set sail for the West Indies, but not before securing a number of agencies to supply cotton goods and fancy articles to the inhabitants of his chosen place of residence, The Island of Trinidad. But shortly after arriving in Port of Spain, the capital of the island, Baird realised that he was not the first to embark on such a venture. In his own words: “The whole Port of Spain appeared to be populated entirely by commission agents, and the commission agents’ chief source of income appeared to be borrowing from newcomers.”

Baird disposed of his samples and began looking around for another form of income. It soon struck him that there was room for the development of a jam and preserves industry, for much of the fruit that grew in such profusion on the island was left on the ground to rot. Trinidad was also one of the principal sugar growing centres of the West Indies, so the ingredients for jam making were available locally and in abundance. Within a year Baird had a thriving business, but also within that year he became desperately ill again, this time suffering from Malaria. Returning to England, Baird left a friend in charge of his jam making factory whilst he tried to establish an export trade to the UK. However, once Baird left the island his friend let the business go to ruin and in the end it was sold for a paltry £5.00.

So by 1920 John Logie Baird found himself back in London, in poor health and with no income except for some limited funds saved from his West Indian activities. Briefly he toyed with the idea of returning to scientific research but ultimately returned to the world of business. Baird began dealing in Australian honey, which he purchased at a low price before packing it into small tins and selling it for a large profit. This business enterprise got Baird back on his financial feet once more and led to other ventures including the manufacture of a soap called “Baird’s Speedy Cleaner.” Unfortunately it was at this time that Baird suffered a complete physical and nervous breakdown, and was ordered by his doctor to abandon forever all thoughts of a business career in London. He was ordered to take a prolonged and complete rest on the English south coast, and having chosen Hastings as a suitable resort he repaired there in the latter part of 1922 little better than a physical wreck. According to Ronald Tiltman’s book he had no income whatsoever and only a small amount of capital saved from his soap business venture. However, there are suggestions that en route to Hastings, Baird may have rented accommodation in Folkstone at 26 Guildhall Street, although there is no mention of this in his earliest biography.

For the first few months in Hastings the 34-year old Scotsman was in no physical or mental condition to do anything other than convalesce. But with gradual returning health came the desire for activity. With the physical demands of business being out of the question, we are led to believe that Baird’s thoughts now turned to his first love –scientific research. Looking for new avenues to explore, Baird apparently remembered the early experiment that he’d carried out with selenium cells in his kitchen experiments.

After a lapse of more than ten years, did Baird decide to turn his attention once more to the scientific dream that was the invention of television? Evidence exists that Baird never really gave up his dream of inventing television and every move that he made, every business that he ventured into, was for the sole purpose of financing his experiments.

'In Both Side of the Burn' published in 1966, the author, W. Imrie, a history master at a secondary school, stated that at the time that Baird was in the Undersock business he was in lodgings at a terraced house, Kildonan, 17 Coldingham Avenue, Yoker. In this house he is said to have achieved the first practicable method of transmitting live pictures. According to Imrie, Baird’s equipment consisted of a tea chest, biscuit tin, scraps of cardboard, fourpenny lenses purchased from Turner’s cycle shop, some darning needles, string, sealing wax, wire, glue and a second-hand electric motor. Although the picture obtained was indistinct its transmission from one room to another was, in the authors words, “unquestionable.”

Certainly the equipment described in this book is identical to that used by Baird eight years later in Hastings, although it is entirely possible that the author was able to write this story years later with hindsight. However, other reports from different sources may confirm the Imrie’s account to be accurate. Mr Colin Graham of Ibrox, Glasgow worked as one of Baird’s salesmen and said that Baird rented an attic in Bath Hotel, Bath Street, between 1918 – 1919, where Graham helped him punch holes in cardboard discs, which he now recognises as Nipkow discs for TV scanning. The widow of Alex Horn, a civil engineer friend of Baird’s recalled that her husband spent a great deal of his spare time manufacturing ‘secret’ components for Baird which appeared to be about half an inch by five-eighths of an inch, of either nickel or chrome. These were made between 1920 and 1922 after Baird had returned from Trinidad. These objects were rectangular in shape and no bigger than a postage stamp and she never discovered their purpose (her husband passed away in an accident in 1926). Years later, she described these components to an engineering lecturer at Melbourne University, who told her that they sounded remarkably like radar components.

In the course of researching their book, 'The Secret Life of John Logie Baird,' Tom McArthur and Peter Waddell discovered further evidence that Baird did not simply go to the West Indies for convalescence, but in fact to continue his experiments in secret. Although there was never any suggestion from previous accounts of Baird’s life that he attempted any research whilst in Trinidad, the authors made contact with several people who told an altogether different story. In fact, if their research is correct, it would now seem as though Baird vigorously pursued the work he had begun in the kitchen of “The Lodge” some years before. In his room in the wooden house of a local plantation owner Baird soon earned himself a local reputation and a nickname of ‘Obeah’ or ‘Black Magic Man’, because of the strange flashing lights coming from the house at night. Further more, one local stated that from his own personal knowledge, Baird was transmitting pictures over a distance of “a few hundred feet.”

Whether any of this is true or not one thing can be confirmed from Baird himself who stated in a 1936 newspaper article, whilst lamenting on his failed preserves industry; “…the only progress I made in that West Indies year was towards television. I spent my nights in the jungle working out problems, and on my return to England I was ready for new experiments.” If accepted, this in itself would disprove the story that Baird only resumed his television experimenting in Hastings. One of the reasons why many people have dismissed Baird’s work in the past is their difficulty in accepting that he was able to develop true television within a few months of moving into his Hastings address. Would the story now be more acceptable if it was proved that the startling results he achieved were the product of more than a decade of constant experimentation?

Chapter Three: In A Hastings Attic

Article: Laurence Marcus 2003 - 2007.

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