Marconi Memorial, Alum Bay
A memorial to the Needles Wireless Telegraph Station built by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 was set on the cliffs at Alum Bay, Isle of Wight in 1940.
In early December 1897, Guglielmo Marconi set up his wireless telegraph equipment at the Royal Needles Hotel (which was destroyed by fire in 1910), above Alum Bay to experiment with transmission to ships at sea.
A 168 foot mast was set up on the cliff and over the next few years Marconi conducted ever more complex experiments with wireless transmissions.
A local committee had been set up to raise funds for the memorial and £25 was raised locally – the Marconi Company then stepped in and provided the remaining amount required. The memorial is a rectangular block of Cornish granite, about 5 foot in height without decoration but bearing a bronze plaque on each of the four sides explaining the work undertaken at the site between 1897 and 1900[1].
In 1900-1901 Marconi continued his experimentation at Knowles Farm, Niton.
Shortly after the memorial was erected, the area was requisitioned by the military for war time operations; the bronze plaques were removed for safe keeping until after the cliffs were again opened to the public in 1944[2].
The memorial was restored in 2000[3].
The memorial is today (2021) located beside the viewing platform, behind the Visitors Centre at the car park entrance to the Needles Pleasure Park.
The four plaques read:
| THIS STONE MARKS THE SITE OF THE NEEDLES WIRELESS TELEGRAPH STATION WHERE GUGLIELMO MARCONI AND HIS BRITISH COLLABORATORS CARRIED OUT FROM 6TH DECEMBER 1897 TO 26TH MAY 1900 A SERIES OF EXPERIMENTS WHICH CONSTITUTED SOME OF THE MORE IMPORTANT PHASES OF THEIR EARLIER PIONEER WORK IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF WIRELESS COMMUNICATION OF ALL KINDS. ----------------------------- THE NEEDLES WIRELESS TELEGRAPH STATION EXCHANGED RADIO MESSAGES FIRST WITH A TUG IN ALUM BAY THEN WITH BOURNEMOUTH 14 MILES DISTANT NEXT WITH POOLE 18 MILES AWAY LATER WITH SHIPS 40 MILES SEAWARDS. THESE WONDERS ATTRACTED WORLD WIDE ATTENTION AND FAMOUS SCIENTISTS FROM MANY COUNTRIES CAME (1898 - 1900) TO SEE THE NEW WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY IN EXPERIMENTAL OPERATION. ----------------------------- ON 15TH NOVEMBER 1899 INFORMATION FOR THE FIRST NEWSPAPER EVER PRODUCED AT SEA - THE TRANSATLANTIC TIMES - WAS TRANSMITTED FROM THIS STATION BY WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY AND PRINTED ON THE U.S. LINER "ST. PAUL" WHEN 36 MILES DISTANT ON 3RD JUNE 1898 LORD KELVIN SENT FROM THE NEEDLES WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY STATION THE FIRST RADIO TELEGRAM FOR WHICH PAYMENT WAS MADE. ----------------------------- MARCONI DESCRIBED THE NEEDLES STATION AS THE WORLD'S "FIRST PERMANENT WIRELESS STATION" IT WAS ERECTED UNDER HIS PERSONAL SUPERVISION BY HIS ASSISTANT GEORGE KEMP FOR MARCONI'S WIRELESS TELEGRAPH CO LTD AND WAS COMPLETED ON 5TH DECEMBER 1897. OTHER RADIO TECHNICISTS OF THIS COMPANY WHO PIONEERED HERE WERE P. W. PAGET - A. GRAY - C. E. RICKARD W. DENSHAM - F. S. STACEY - P. J. WOODWARD C. H. TAYLOR THE STATION WAS DISMANTLED IN JUNE 1900. |
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