Ballycastle Chronicle out a series of practical experiments in
wireless telegraphy in Italy and, although Sir
Letter to the Editor
I read with amazement your article in last
week’s edition of the Chronicle as I did in the
national newspapers and on television that
Marconi's cottage was on the market for sale,
that this is where experiments took place and
that Marconi may have stayed at this cottage.
There is no local evidence to support these
claims at all and it creates a totally wrong
impression of what actually did happen in the
summer of 1898. I appreciate that none of us
were around at that time. However, I will give
a brief account of Marconi's life and his early
association with radio in a attempt to set the
matter straight.
Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy on April
25, 1874, to an Italian father and an Irish
mother. His mother was Annie Jameson whose
family owned the Jameson Whiskey Distillery
in County Wexford.
His work on Rathlin Island and in Ballycastle
covered a relatively short period from June 4
to September 2, 1898. Marconi himself visited
for four days during that time. The
experimental work was carried out by his
assistant George Kemp, who was in turn
assisted by Edward Glanville; also employed
was a John Cecil from Rathlin Island.
They carried out experimental transmissions
between the east lighthouse on Rathlin Island
and the 'White Lodge' house, situated at the
harbour in Ballycastle, and in doing so created
the historical link between the town and the
pioneering developments that were taking
place in 'wireless telegraphy'.
Heinrich Hertz, who died in 1894, had
discovered that electro-magnetic waves existed
in the air and that these could be detected over
short distances. Sir William Crookes also
predicted that these same electro-magnetic
waves could be used for communication.
Marconi had studied physics and took
inspiration from the work of Hertz. He carried
Oliver Lodge and Dr Alexander Muirhead
claimed to have sent a ‘wireless’ signal
between two Oxford buildings in 1894, it was
Marconi who registered the first patent of this
technology.
Sir Oliver Lodge had developed a more
efficient way of picking up these electo-
magnetic signals than Hertz in the 'Branley
coherer' and Marconi developed this ability a
step further.
In 1985, a Captain H. B. Jackson (Royal
Navy) had also succeeded in transmitting a
‘wireless’ signal the length of ship which rang
a bell and later in 1886, from ship to ship
within the confines of an harbour, repeating
what Marconi had already done in 1894.
Jackson later met Marconi during experiments
on Salisbury Plain. At the time many scientists
were working in the same field but it was
Marconi who had realized the potential of the
discovery, one which led him to register
Patent No. 12039, on June 2,1896, with a
specification for a 'wireless' system using
'Hertzian waves'.
Some of his landmark achievements are as
follows:
1894 - Italy – first demonstrated the
transmission of ‘wireless’ signals to sound a
bell across a room;
1895 – Italy - successfully demonstrated signal
transmission and reception over a 2km
distance across fields;
1896 - England - came to London and
registered his patent - demonstrated
transmission and reception on Salisbury plain
using an aerial developed by the Russian Prof.
Alexander Popoff. Captain H. B. Jackson was
present along with the chief engineer of the
General Post Office and also representatives of
the British Army.
1897 - England – He achieved a range of 7km
transmission and reception on Salisbury Plain -
achieved a new record distance of 14km when
he send a message across the Bristol Channel
from Flat Holm, Weston-super-Mare, to
Lavernock Point, Cardiff – set up an aerial in
the grounds of the Royal Needles Hotel, Alum
Bay, Isle of Wight and communicated with two
hired ferries and later with another station set
up in the Madeira House, Bournemouth –
Italy - communicated from La Spezia, Italy
with the armoured cruiser 'San Martino', a
distance of 11 miles - England - with his
cousin Jameson Davis he first registered his
company as The Wireless Telegraph and
Signal Company;
1898 - Ireland - transmission and reception
between Rathlin Island and Ballycastle under
commission by Lloyds of London – sent the
world's first live 'wireless' report of a yacht
race from a ship called 'The Flying Huntress'
to a shore station at Kingstown (Dublin). This
brought immense publicity and interest for
Marconi work and its commercial and military
potential;
1899 - England - The Goodwin Lightship,
which had been installed with a transmitter,
was rammed in heavy fog by the S.S. 'R.F.
Mathews'. It was able to send the first 'live
saving' signal from sea, for the assistance of
two lifeboats;
1901 – Send a signal 198 miles between the
Isle of Wight and Lizard Point, Cornwall -
defying critics and the opinions of the
scientific world he sent a signal around the
curvature of the earth, from Poldhu, Cornwall
to Signal Hill, St John’s, Newfoundland;
1918 – first signal from England to Australia .
These are just a few of the scores of events
and achievements during his lifetime and we
have not touched on the greatest aid that his
work created for shipping, namely the ability
to sent 'wireless' distress signals which led to
the saving of hundreds of thousands of lives at
sea.
How or why Marconi came to Ballycastle to
undertake the trials for Lloyds is not
completely clear. It was certainly related to
the fact that 'wireless telegraphy' promised to
become the most important development in
tracking incoming and outgoing vessels. The
possibility had come of age when, with
Marconi equipped stations all along the coast,
all vessels within twenty-five miles of shore
could make their presence known and send or
receive communications.
So apparent were the advantages of such a
system that Lloyds in May, 1898, entered into
negotiations for the setting up of Marconi
instruments at various Lloyds stations and
preliminary trials were commissioned between
Rathlin Island and Ballycastle.
Another factor may have been the location, as
all transatlantic shipping coming and going
from Liverpool passed between Torr Head and
the Mull of Kintyre and, like Malin Head, Torr
Head already had a signalling station,both
which relied on semaphore communication.
Therefore Rathlin to Ballycastle would have
been the ideal location.
These early contracts from Lloyds along with
others from the Royal Navy, British Army and
three shipping companies gave the new
company its first income and the foundations
of what today is a multi national company.
There are, however, some incorrect facts
around the work that took place in Ballycastle.
Firstly, the cottage referred to as 'Marconi's
Cottage', situated on the shoreline at the end of
the road before Fair Head, was not where the
reception of transmissions were received.
As James O'Kane, ex-Town Clerk of Moyle
District Council pointed out in an article to the
Irish News, the former Antrim County
Council, misled by local Post Office officials,
put a plaque on the cottage. Not only was it at
the wrong location but the date on the plaque
of 1904 was also wrong.
The other point is the fact that the
transmissions and receptions were not, as
some accounts claim, the first transmissions
or receptions over water or indeed the first
'wireless' transmissions in the world. They
were a part of the development of 'wireless
telegraphy' which would revolutionize tragically stumbled and fell down a cliff on
communications, especially for mariners. Rathlin Island.

Marconi’s assistant, George Kemp, arrived in Marconi is recorded as having arrived in

Ballycastle on June, 1898, and was assisted by
Edward Glanville, a young graduate of Trinity
College, Dublin. Kemp also employed a John
Cecil of Rathlin Island to assist in the work
they would undertake and I am sure several
other local people helped in the task of
erecting and securing the mast at the east
lighthouse and at Ballycastle.
Kemp identified the east lighthouse on Rathlin
and the harbour area in Ballycastle to be the
best locations for the two signal stations. They
set about erecting an eighty foot aerial at the
east light house on Rathlin.
At first, they could not get any reception at the
harbour in Ballycastle and, after researching
other locations in Ballycastle, they eventually
increased the mast size at 'White Lodge' near
the coal yards (where the present Ferry
terminal car park is situated) to 104 feet.
Ballycastle on August 29 and spent four days
here, during which time he visited and checked
the equipment and transmissions on Rathlin
Island, experienced the Lammas Fair on
August 31 and left for London on September
2.
Marconi went on to develop short wave radio,
the basis for most long distance
communications before satellite. He was also
awarded a Nobel Prize for Physics in 1909 and
on his death in 1937 was given a state funeral
in his hometown of Bologna.
Kevin McAuley MI0CRQ
Class ‘A’ Radio Operator.

This seem to solve the problem and on July 6

Kemp recorded the first signals transmitted
from Rathlin Island by Edward Glanville.
They continued with their experimental trials
until George Kemp was instructed to go to
Kingston (now Dun Laoghaire), Dublin.

Marconi had been commissioned by the

Dublin Daily Express to report the progress of
the Kingston Regatta (July 20–22, 1898). He
did this from a steam tug, sending 'wireless'
messages back to the harbour where they were
subsequently telephoned to Dublin; becoming
what many believe to be have been the first
'live' transmission of a sporting event in the
world. In the process he gained immense
publicity for the technology and his Company.

There seems to be some confusion as to some

dates and whether Edward Glanville actually
accompanied Kemp to Dublin or not. The
Regatta was held on July 20-22, 1898, which
meant that Kemp and Granville would have
been away together. Yet, accounts tell of the
untimely death of Edward Granville taking
place on Sunday, 21 July, 1898 when he