John Logie Baird
John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of television and lost the format war. Born at Helensburgh in Scotland in 1888, the son of a minister, he was chronically ill throughout his life and was rejected for military service. He studied engineering at Glasgow but did not graduate, and tried a succession of ventures — a jam factory in Trinidad, a soap business, medicated socks — most of which failed. In poor health he moved to Hastings in 1923 and began experimenting with a mechanical system based on the Nipkow disc, an idea patented in 1884 and never made to work. His first apparatus was assembled from a tea chest, a hatbox, darning needles, bicycle lamp lenses, sealing wax and string. In October 1925 he transmitted the first moving image with tonal gradation, the head of a ventriloquist's dummy called Stooky Bill; he then ran downstairs and fetched an office boy, William Taynton, who became the first person televised. On 26 January 1926 he demonstrated it to about forty members of the Royal Institution in his Soho attic. He transmitted London to Glasgow in 1927, London to New York in 1928, and demonstrated colour television and a stereoscopic system the same year. The BBC broadcast using his system from 1929. The mechanical approach had a hard ceiling of resolution. In 1936 the BBC ran his 240-line system alternately with Marconi-EMI's all-electronic 405-line system, and dropped his in February 1937. He continued working on high-definition and colour tubes. He died in 1946.
- Lived: 1888 CE – 1946 CE
- Nationality: British
- Roles: inventor, engineer
