Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st MarquessTemplate:Efn (25 April 1874 – 20 July 1937), was an Italian radio-frequency engineer, inventor, and politician known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This led to his being largely credited as the inventor of radio and sharing the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy." His work laid the foundation for the development of radio, television, and all modern wireless communication systems.

As an entrepreneur and a businessman, Marconi founded The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company (later the Marconi Company) in the United Kingdom in 1897. In 1929, he was ennobled as a marquess (Template:Langx) by King Victor Emmanuel III. In 1931, he set up Vatican Radio for Pope Pius XI.

Early life and ancestry

Family

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Marconi family arms

Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi was born on 25 April 1874 at Palazzo Dall'Armi Marescalchi in Bologna, Italy, the son of Giuseppe Marconi, a wealthy landowner from Capugnano, near Porretta Terme, in the Bolognese Apennines, who lived in the countryside of Pontecchio, and his second wife, Annie Jameson, the granddaughter of Jameson Irish Whiskey founder John Jameson. Giuseppe, who was a widower with a son, Luigi, married Annie on 16 April 1864 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.

Alfonso, Marconi's older brother, was born the following year. Between the ages of two and six Guglielmo lived with Alfonso and their mother in Bedford, England. Having an Irish mother helped explain his many activities in Great Britain and Ireland.

On 4 May 1877, when Marconi was age 3, his father decided to obtain British citizenship; Marconi could have thus also opted for British citizenship at any time, since both his parents were British citizens.

Education

Marconi did not receive any formal education during his youth. Instead, he learned chemistry, mathematics, and physics at home from a series of private tutors hired by his parents; his family hired additional tutors for him in the winter when they would leave Bologna for the warmer climate of Tuscany or Florence. An important mentor was Vincenzo Rosa, a high school physics teacher in Livorno. Rosa taught the 17-year-old Marconi the basics of physical phenomena as well as new theories on electricity.

At the age of 18, Marconi returned to Bologna and became acquainted with Augusto Righi, a physics professor at the University of Bologna, who had done research on Heinrich Hertz's work. Righi permitted Marconi to attend lectures at the university and also to use the university's laboratory and library.

Radio work

From youth, Marconi was interested in science and electricity. In the early 1890s, he began working on the idea of "wireless telegraphy" – i.e., the transmission of telegraph messages without connecting wires as used by the electric telegraph. This was not a new idea; numerous investigators and inventors had been exploring wireless telegraph technologies and even building systems using electric conduction, electromagnetic induction and optical (light) signalling for over 50 years, but none had proven technically and commercially successful. A relatively new development came from Heinrich Hertz, who, in 1888, demonstrated that one could produce and detect electromagnetic radiation, based on the work of James Clerk Maxwell. At the time, this radiation was commonly called "Hertzian waves", and is now generally referred to as radio waves.

There was a great deal of interest in radio waves in the physics community, but this interest was in the scientific phenomenon, not in its potential as a communication method. Physicists generally looked on radio waves as an invisible form of light that could only travel along a line of sight path, limiting its range to the visual horizon like existing forms of visual signalling. Hertz's death in 1894 brought published reviews of his earlier discoveries including a demonstration on the transmission and detection of radio waves by the British physicist Oliver Lodge and an article about Hertz's work by Augusto Righi. Righi's article renewed Marconi's interest in developing a wireless telegraphy system based on radio waves, a line of inquiry that Marconi noted other inventors did not seem to be pursuing.

Developing radio telegraphy

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Marconi's first transmitter incorporating a monopole antenna. It consisted of an elevated copper sheet (top) connected to a Righi spark gap (left) powered by an induction coil (centre) with a telegraph key (right) to switch it on and off to spell out text messages in Morse code.

At the age of 20, Marconi began to conduct experiments on radio waves, building much of his own equipment in the attic of Villa Griffone, the Marconi family residence in Pontecchio, now in the municipality of Sasso Marconi, Italy, with the help of his butler, Mignani. The attic laboratory was later remembered as the Stanza dei Bachi ("silkworm room"), because it occupied a former silkworm room in the villa. Marconi built on Hertz's original experiments and, at the suggestion of Righi, began using a coherer, an early detector based on the 1890 findings of French physicist Édouard Branly and used in Lodge's experiments, which changed resistance when exposed to radio waves. In the summer of 1894, he built a storm alarm made up of a battery, a coherer, and an electric bell, which went off when it picked up the radio waves generated by lightning.

Late one night, in December 1894, Marconi demonstrated a radio transmitter and receiver to his mother, a set-up that made a bell ring on the other side of the room by pushing a telegraphic button on a bench. Supported by his father, Marconi continued to read the available literature and developed ideas from physicists who were experimenting with radio waves. He developed devices, such as portable transmitters and receiver systems, that could work over increasing distances, turning what was essentially a laboratory experiment into a useful communication system. Marconi later described his 1895 apparatus in his Nobel lecture. The system included:

• A relatively simple oscillator or spark-producing radio transmitter;
• A wire or metal sheet capacity area suspended at a height above the ground;
• A coherer receiver, which was a modification of Édouard Branly's original device with refinements to increase sensitivity and reliability;
• A telegraph key to operate the transmitter to send short and long pulses, corresponding to the dots and dashes of Morse code; and
• A telegraph register activated by the coherer, which recorded the received Morse code dots and dashes onto a roll of paper tape.

In the summer of 1895, Marconi moved his experiments outdoors on his father's estate at Villa Griffone, in Pontecchio near Bologna. He tried different arrangements and shapes of antenna, but even with improvements he was able to transmit signals only up to 800 metres (0.5 mile), a distance Oliver Lodge had predicted in 1894 as the maximum transmission distance for radio waves.

Transmission breakthrough

A breakthrough came in the summer of 1895, when Marconi found that a much greater range could be achieved after he raised the height of his antenna and, borrowing from a technique used in wired telegraphy, grounded his transmitter and receiver. With these improvements, the system was capable of transmitting signals up to and over hills. In one of the 1895 outdoor trials at Villa Griffone, Marconi transmitted wireless signals beyond the Celestini hill, at a distance of about 2 km, using a vertical antenna connected to a buried metal plate in an antenna-earth system. The monopole antenna reduced the frequency of the waves compared to the dipole antennas used by Hertz, and radiated vertically polarized radio waves which could travel longer distances. By this point, Marconi concluded that a device could become capable of spanning greater distances, with additional funding and research, and would prove valuable both commercially and militarily. Marconi's experimental apparatus proved to be the first engineering-complete, commercially successful radio transmission system.

Marconi applied to the Italian Ministry of Post and Telegraphs, then under the direction of Maggiorino Ferraris, explaining his wireless telegraph machine and asking for funding, but never received a response. An apocryphal tale claims that the minister, incorrectly named first as Emilio Sineo and later as Pietro Lacava, wrote "to the Longara" on the document, referring to the insane asylum on Via della Lungara in Rome, but the letter was never found.

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1897 illustration of Marconi with his invention

In 1896, Marconi spoke with his family friend Carlo Gardini, Honorary Consul at the United States Consulate in Bologna, about leaving Italy to go to Great Britain. Gardini wrote a letter of introduction to the Ambassador of Italy in London, Annibale Ferrero, explaining who Marconi was and describing his discoveries. In his response, Ambassador Ferrero advised them not to reveal Marconi's results until after a patent was obtained. He also encouraged Marconi to come to Britain, where he believed it would be easier to find the necessary funds to turn his experiments into practical use. Finding little interest or appreciation for his work in Italy, Marconi travelled to London in early 1896 at the age of 21, accompanied by his mother, to seek support for his work. He spoke fluent English in addition to Italian. Marconi arrived at Dover, where a Customs officer opened his case and found various apparatuses. The officer contacted the Admiralty in London, and, amid concerns in the United Kingdom about Italian anarchists and suspicion that Marconi might be importing a bomb, his equipment was destroyed.

While in the United Kingdom, Marconi gained the interest and support of William Preece, the Chief Electrical Engineer of the General Post Office (GPO). Marconi applied for a patent on 2 June 1896. British Patent number 12039, titled "Improvements in Transmitting Electrical impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus therefor", became the first patent for a communication system based on radio waves.

Demonstrations and achievements

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British Post Office engineers inspect Marconi's radio equipment during a demonstration on Flat Holm Island in the Bristol Channel, 13 May 1897. The transmitter is at the centre, the coherer receiver below it, and the pole supporting the wire antenna is visible at top.

Marconi gave a series of demonstrations in Britain in 1896 and 1897, including in London, on Salisbury Plain, and across the Bristol Channel. By March 1897, he had transmitted Morse code signals over a distance of about across Salisbury Plain. On 13 May 1897, Marconi sent the first wireless communication over open sea: a message was transmitted over the Bristol Channel from Flat Holm Island to Lavernock Point near Cardiff, a distance of . The message read "Are you ready". The transmitting equipment was almost immediately relocated to Brean Down Fort on the Somerset coast, stretching the range to .

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Plaque on the outside of the BT Centre in London, commemorating Marconi's first public transmission of wireless signals.

Impressed by these and other demonstrations, Preece introduced Marconi's ongoing work to the general public at two important London lectures: "Telegraphy without Wires", at the Toynbee Hall on 11 December 1896; and "Signalling through Space without Wires", given to the Royal Institution on 4 June 1897.

Numerous additional demonstrations followed, and Marconi began to receive international attention. In July 1897, he carried out a series of tests at La Spezia, in his home country, for the Italian government. A test for Lloyd's between the Marine Hotel in Ballycastle and Rathlin Island, both in County Antrim in Ulster, Ireland, was conducted on 6 July 1898 by George Kemp and Edward Edwin Glanville. A transmission across the English Channel was accomplished on 27 March 1899, from Wimereux, France to South Foreland Lighthouse, England. Marconi set up an experimental base at the Haven Hotel, Sandbanks, Poole Harbour, Dorset, where he erected a 100-foot high mast. He became friends with the van Raaltes, the owners of Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, and his steam yacht, the Elettra, was often moored on Brownsea or at the Haven Hotel. Marconi would later purchase the vessel after the Great War and convert it to a seaborne laboratory from which he would conduct many of his experiments. Among the ElettraTemplate:'s crew was Adelmo Landini, his personal radio operator, who was also an inventor.

In July 1898, Marconi's system was also used to report the Kingstown Regatta off the Irish coast, an early use of wireless telegraphy for live reporting of a sporting event.

In December 1898, the British lightship service authorised the establishment of wireless communication between the South Foreland lighthouse at Dover and the East Goodwin lightship, twelve miles distant. On 17 March 1899, the East Goodwin lightship sent the first wireless distress signal, a signal on behalf of the merchant vessel Elbe which had run aground on Goodwin Sands. The message was received by the radio operator of the South Foreland lighthouse, who summoned the aid of the Ramsgate lifeboat.

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SS Ponce entering New York Harbor 1899, by Milton J. Burns

In 1899, Marconi sailed to the United States at the invitation of The New York Herald newspaper to cover that year's America's Cup international yacht races off Sandy Hook, New Jersey. His first demonstration was a transmission from aboard the SS Ponce, a passenger ship of the Porto Rico Line. Marconi left for England on 8 November 1899 on the American Line's , and he and his assistants installed wireless equipment aboard during the voyage. Marconi's wireless brought news of the Second Boer War, which had begun a month before their departure, to passengers at the request of "some of the officials of the American line." On 15 November the SS Saint Paul became the first ocean liner to report her imminent return to Great Britain by wireless when Marconi's Royal Needles Hotel radio station contacted her 66 nautical miles off the English coast. The first Transatlantic Times, a newspaper containing wireless transmission news from the Needles Station at the Isle of Wight, was published on board the SS Saint Paul before its arrival.

Transatlantic transmissions

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Marconi watching associates raising the kite, a "Levitor" by Baden Baden-Powell, used to lift the antenna at St. John's, Newfoundland, December 1901.

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Magnetic detector by Marconi used during the experimental campaign aboard a ship in summer 1902, exhibited at the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci of Milan.

At the turn of the 20th century, Marconi began investigating a means to signal across the Atlantic to compete with the transatlantic telegraph cables. Marconi established a wireless transmitting station at Marconi House, Rosslare Strand, County Wexford, in 1901 to act as a link between Poldhu in Cornwall, England, and Clifden in Connemara, County Galway, Ireland. He soon announced that the Morse code letter S had been received at Signal Hill in St. John's, Newfoundland (now part of Canada), on 12 December 1901, using a kite-supported antenna for reception from the company's new high-power station at Poldhu, Cornwall. The distance between the two points was about .

The claim was heralded as a major scientific advance, but there was, and continues to be, considerable scepticism about it. The exact wavelength used is not known, but it is fairly reliably determined to have been in the neighbourhood of 350 metres, corresponding to a frequency of about 850 kHz. The tests took place at a time of day during which the entire transatlantic path was in daylight. It is now known, although Marconi did not know it at the time, that this was the worst possible choice. At this medium wavelength, long-distance daytime transmission is not possible because of the heavy absorption of the skywave in the ionosphere. It was not a blind test: Marconi knew in advance to listen for a repetitive signal of three clicks, signifying the Morse code letter S. The clicks were reported to have been heard faintly and sporadically. There was no independent confirmation of the reported reception, and the transmissions were difficult to distinguish from atmospheric noise. A detailed technical review of Marconi's early transatlantic work appears in John S. Belrose's work of 1995. The Poldhu transmitter was a two-stage circuit.

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Marconi demonstrating apparatus he used in his first long-distance radio transmissions in the 1890s. The transmitter is at the right, the receiver with paper tape recorder at the left.

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Marconi caricatured by Leslie Ward for Vanity Fair, 1905.

Faced with scepticism, Marconi prepared a better-organised and documented test. In February 1902, the SS Philadelphia sailed west from Great Britain with Marconi aboard, carefully recording signals sent daily from the Poldhu station. The test results produced coherer-tape reception up to , and audio reception up to . The maximum distances were achieved at night, and these tests were the first to show that radio signals for medium wave and longwave transmissions travel much farther at night than during the day. During the daytime, signals had been received up to only about , less than half of the distance claimed earlier at Newfoundland, where the transmissions had also taken place during the day. Because of this, Marconi had not fully confirmed the Newfoundland claim, although he did prove that radio signals could be sent for hundreds of kilometres, despite some scientists' belief that they were limited essentially to line-of-sight distances.

In mid-December 1902, transmissions between the Marconi station at Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Poldhu became the first official transatlantic wireless messages sent from North America to Europe. In 1901, Marconi built a station near South Wellfleet, Massachusetts, that sent a message of greetings on 18 January 1903 from United States President Theodore Roosevelt to King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. However, consistent transatlantic signalling was difficult to establish.

Marconi began to build high-powered stations on both sides of the Atlantic to communicate with ships at sea, in competition with other inventors. In 1904, he established a commercial service to transmit nightly news summaries to subscribing ships, which could incorporate them into their on-board newspapers. A regular transatlantic radio-telegraph service was finally begun on 17 October 1907 between Clifden, Ireland, and Glace Bay, but even after this the company struggled for many years to provide reliable communication.

Titanic

Before the Titanic disaster, the value of maritime wireless had already been demonstrated in the 1909 rescue following the collision between RMS Republic and SS Florida off Nantucket. Republic carried Marconi wireless equipment, and its operator Jack Binns sent repeated CQD distress calls that helped bring rescue ships to the scene and saved more than 1,500 people.

The role played by Marconi Co. wireless in maritime rescues raised public awareness of the value of radio, especially after the sinking of RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912 and RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915.

RMS Titanic radio operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were not employed by the White Star Line but by the Marconi International Marine Communication Company. After the sinking of the ocean liner, survivors were rescued by the RMS Carpathia of the Cunard Line. There was a distance of 93 km (58 miles) between the two ships. When Carpathia docked in New York, Marconi went aboard with a reporter from The New York Times to talk with Bride, the surviving operator. The disaster increased public recognition of Marconi's wireless system and of its importance for maritime safety.

On 18 June 1912, Marconi gave evidence to the British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry into the loss of Titanic regarding the functions of marine wireless telegraphy and procedures for emergencies at sea. Britain's Postmaster-General, Herbert Samuel, summed up the perceived importance of wireless communication in the disaster: "Those who have been saved, have been saved through one man, Mr Marconi ... and his marvellous invention."

Marconi was offered free passage on Titanic before she sank, but had taken Lusitania three days earlier. As his daughter Degna later explained, he had paperwork to do and preferred the public stenographer aboard that vessel.

Bose detector and Italian Navy coherer controversy

The "Italian Navy coherer" controversy concerns the origin and attribution of the detector used by Marconi during the 12 December 1901 transatlantic wireless experiment at Signal Hill, St. John's, Newfoundland. The dispute concerns a specific receiving component, a self-restoring mercury coherer connected to a telephone receiver, rather than Marconi's complete wireless telegraphy system.

A Science Museum Group collection record describes the surviving device as a carbon-mercury-iron semiconductor diode detector of the type invented by Jagadish Chandra Bose in 1899, modified between 1899 and 1901, and known as the "Italian Navy coherer". The same record identifies it as the detector used by Marconi in Newfoundland to receive the December 1901 transatlantic wireless signal. Bose had previously described a related iron-mercury-iron coherer with a telephone detector in a paper submitted to the Royal Society in 1899.

Later historical accounts state that Marconi obtained the detector in 1901 from Lieutenant Luigi Solari of the Royal Italian Navy, who had adapted a mercury-contact detector using carbon or iron electrodes inside a glass tube. In 1902 and 1903, the attribution of the device was disputed in Italian and British technical periodicals, with claims involving Paolo Castelli, Solari, and Tommaso Tommasina; Silvanus P. Thompson also challenged Marconi's claim to priority, while Marconi and Solari defended their positions.

The attribution has remained a subject of historical debate. V. J. Phillips described the episode as the "Italian Navy coherer affair", while Probir K. Bondyopadhyay argued that the detector used by Marconi in the 1901 transatlantic experiment derived from Bose's earlier work on self-recovering coherers and semiconductor detection. The dispute therefore concerns the origin, adaptation, and attribution of the detector used in the 1901 reception, and does not concern Marconi's wider role in developing practical long-distance wireless telegraphy.

Continuing work

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Share of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, issued 20 August 1913.

Over the years, the Marconi companies gained a reputation for being technically conservative, in particular by continuing to use inefficient spark-transmitter technology, which could be used only for radio-telegraph operations, long after it was apparent that the future of radio communication lay with continuous-wave transmissions, which were more efficient and could be used for audio transmissions. Somewhat belatedly, the company began significant work with continuous-wave equipment in 1915, after the introduction of the oscillating vacuum tube, or valve.

The New Street Works factory in Chelmsford was the location of one of the first public entertainment radio broadcasts in Britain, on 15 June 1920, when Dame Nellie Melba performed in a broadcast organised by the Marconi Company. In 1922, the Marconi Company operated broadcasting stations at 2MT Writtle, near Chelmsford, and at 2LO in Marconi House, London, both of which helped pave the way for the formation of the British Broadcasting Company.

In 1924, the Marconi-linked company Radiofono was one of the companies that contributed to the formation of the Unione Radiofonica Italiana (URI), the first Italian radio broadcasting concessionaire and a predecessor of RAI.

Politics and military service

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Marconi in army uniform.

In 1914, Marconi was appointed to the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy by Victor Emmanuel III for having rendered eminent services to the nation. He was also appointed Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in the United Kingdom. During World War I, after Italy joined the Allied side, Marconi served in military and naval technical roles connected with wireless communication. According to the historical records of the Italian Senate, he was appointed a lieutenant in the military engineers in 1915, later held naval ranks including captain and commander, and was promoted to rear admiral in the reserve in 1936. In 1929, he was granted the hereditary title of marquess by royal decree.

Fascism

In 1923, Marconi joined the National Fascist Party. Under the Fascist regime he held several prominent public offices: in 1927 he became president of the National Research Council, and on 19 September 1930 he was appointed president of the Royal Academy of Italy, a position he held until his death. His presidency of the Royal Academy of Italy also made him a member of the Fascist Grand Council.

Marconi publicly associated himself with Fascism. In one speech, he stated: "I reclaim the honour of being the first fascist in the field of radiotelegraphy, the first who acknowledged the utility of joining the electric rays in a bundle, as Mussolini was the first in the political field who acknowledged the necessity of merging all the healthy energies of the country into a bundle, for the greater greatness of Italy." During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, contemporary press reports stated that Marconi was expected to assist Italian forces in communications work.

Research by Annalisa Capristo has argued that Jewish candidates were systematically excluded from the Royal Academy of Italy during Marconi's presidency, before the introduction of Italy's 1938 racial laws. Reporting on Capristo's archival findings, The Guardian stated that Marconi marked Jewish candidates' records with the letter "E" and that no Jewish candidates were admitted to the academy during his tenure.

Death and posthumous

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Villa Marconi, with Marconi's tomb in the foreground.

Marconi had suffered from heart disease for years before his death. A medical-historical review reported that he had sustained a myocardial infarction about ten years earlier, followed by angina pectoris, and described his final illness as an acute coronary syndrome with heart failure and dysrhythmias. He died in Rome on 20 July 1937, at the age of 63.

A state funeral was held for him. As a tribute, shops on the street where he lived were "Closed for national mourning". At 6 pm on the following day, the time designated for the funeral, radio transmitters around the world observed two minutes of silence in his honour. The British Post Office also sent a message requesting that all broadcasting ships honour Marconi with two minutes of broadcasting silence.

At his own request, Marconi's funeral was held in his native city of Bologna, in the San Petronio Basilica, and his coffin was initially laid to rest in the Certosa cemetery. In 1941, his body was exhumed and buried in the Mausoleum of Guglielmo Marconi, built by architect Marcello Piacentini at Villa Griffone in Pontecchio, where Marconi had carried out his first experiments. The municipality of Sasso Bolognese and the village of Pontecchio were renamed Sasso Marconi and Pontecchio Marconi in his memory in 1938.

After Marconi's death, the Italian state began the process of acquiring Villa Griffone and its surrounding park. The villa was declared a national monument in 1939 and became the property of the Fondazione Guglielmo Marconi in 1941, the same year in which the mausoleum was completed and inaugurated. The Marconi Museum was opened inside Villa Griffone in 1999.

In 1943, Marconi's steam yacht, Elettra, was commandeered and refitted as a warship by the German Kriegsmarine. The following year, she was sunk by the British Royal Air Force on 22 January. After the war, the Italian government tried to retrieve the wreckage to rebuild the boat; the wreckage was removed to Italy. Eventually, the idea was abandoned, and the wreckage was cut into pieces which were distributed among Italian museums.

1943 United States Supreme Court patent decision

On 21 June 1943, in Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America v. United States, the Supreme Court of the United States reviewed a Court of Claims case brought by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America against the United States government for the alleged use of wireless patents during World War I. The case involved four patents: two issued to Marconi, including U.S. Patent No. 763,772 and reissue No. 11,913, one issued to Oliver Lodge, and one issued to John Ambrose Fleming.

The Court affirmed the invalidation of the broad claims of Marconi Patent No. 763,772, holding that they were "invalid because anticipated". It found that John Stone Stone had anticipated Marconi's claims and that Marconi had shown no invention over Stone by making the antenna circuit tuning adjustable, or by using Oliver Lodge's variable inductance for that purpose. The Court also discussed the earlier work of Nikola Tesla, Lodge, and Stone, but stated that, in view of its interpretation of Stone's application and patent, it did not need to decide whether Marconi's patent lacked invention over all three.

The decision did not determine the general question of who invented radio. In its opinion, the Court distinguished between Marconi's earlier practical achievements and the later patent claims before it, noting that Marconi's reputation as the first person to achieve successful radio transmission rested on his original patent, which was not the patent claim invalidated in that part of the case.

Personal life

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Guglielmo and Beatrice Marconi, 1910

Marconi was a friend of Charles and Florence van Raalte, the owners of Brownsea Island, and of their daughter, Margherita. In 1904, he met Margherita's Irish friend, The Hon. Beatrice O'Brien (1882–1976), the daughter of Edward O'Brien, 14th Baron Inchiquin. On 16 March 1905, Guglielmo and Beatrice were married, and spent their honeymoon on Brownsea Island. They had three daughters: Lucia (born and died 1906), Degna (1908–1998), and Gioia (1916–1996); and a son, Giulio (1910–1971), who became 2nd Marquess. In 1913, the family returned to Italy and became part of Rome society; Beatrice served as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elena. At Marconi's request, his marriage to Beatrice was annulled on 27 April 1927, so he could remarry.

Marconi wanted to marry Template:Ill (2 April 1900 – 15 July 1994), the only daughter of Francesco, Count Bezzi-Scali. To do this, he had to be confirmed in the Catholic faith and became a practising member of the Church. He had been baptised Catholic but was brought up as a member of the Anglican Church. On 12 June 1927, he married Maria in a civil ceremony, with a religious ceremony performed on 15 June. He was 53 years old, while Maria was 27. They had one daughter, Maria Elettra Elena Anna (born 1930). For unexplained reasons, Marconi left his entire fortune to his second wife and their only child, and nothing to the children of his first marriage.

In 1931, Pope Pius XI commissioned Marconi to build Vatican Radio's short-wave station, and the first papal radio broadcast took place on 12 February of that year. Marconi personally introduced the broadcast and announced at the microphone: "With the help of God, who places so many mysterious forces of nature at man's disposal, I have been able to prepare this instrument which will give to the faithful of the entire world the joy of listening to the voice of the Holy Father."

Recognition

Memberships

Year	Organisation	Type	Template:Reference column heading
1901	Template:Flagicon American Philosophical Society	International Member
1912	Template:Flagicon Accademia dei Lincei	National Member
1932	Template:Flagicon National Academy of Sciences	International Member
1936	Template:Flagicon Pontifical Academy of Sciences	Academician

Awards

Year	Organisation	Award	Citation	Template:Reference column heading
1901	Template:Flagicon Accademia dei XL	Matteucci Medal
1909	Template:Flagicon Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences	Nobel Prize in PhysicsTemplate:Efn	"In recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy."
1914	Template:Flagicon Royal Society of Arts	Albert Medal	"For his services in the development and practical application of wireless telegraphy."
1918	Template:Flagicon Franklin Institute	Franklin Medal	"For the application of radio waves to communication."
1920	Template:Flagicon Institute of Radio Engineers	IRE Medal of Honor	"In recognition of his pioneer work in radio telegraphy."
1923	Template:Flagicon AAES	John Fritz Medal
1931	Template:Plainlist	John Scott Medal
1934	Template:Flagicon Austrian Trade Association	Wilhelm Exner Medal

Chivalric titles and honours

Year	Head of state	Title	Template:Reference column heading
1902	Template:Flagicon Victor Emmanuel III	Knight of the Order of Merit for Labour
1914	Template:Flagicon George V	Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order
1929	Template:Flagicon Victor Emmanuel III	Marquess

Commemoration

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Memorial plaque in the Basilica Santa Croce, Florence, Italy.

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Italian lira banknote, 1990 issue.

• In 1974, Italy marked the centenary of Marconi's birth with a commemorative 100 lire coin.
• In 1975, Marconi was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
• In 1978, Marconi was inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame.
• In 1990, the Bank of Italy issued a 2,000 lire banknote featuring Marconi on the front and his yacht Elettra, radio towers, and early radio apparatus on the reverse.
• In 2001, the Royal Mint issued a commemorative £2 coin celebrating the 100th anniversary of Marconi's first wireless transmission across the Atlantic.
• Marconi's early experiments in wireless telegraphy were recognised by two IEEE Milestones: one in Switzerland in 2003 and one in Italy in 2011.
• In 2009, Italy issued a commemorative silver 10 euro coin honouring the centenary of Marconi's Nobel Prize.
• In 2009, he was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
• The Dutch radio academy bestows the Template:Ill annually for outstanding radio programmes, presenters and stations.
• The National Association of Broadcasters in the United States bestows the annual NAB Marconi Radio Awards for outstanding radio programmes and stations.

Tributes and namesakes

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Guglielmo Marconi Memorial in Washington, D.C.

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Bronze statue of Guglielmo Marconi, sculpted by Saleppichi Giancarlo and erected in 1975 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Italian 100 lire coin from 1974 commemorating the centenary of Marconi's birth.

• A funerary monument to Marconi can be seen in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence, but his remains are in the Mausoleum of Guglielmo Marconi in Sasso Marconi, Italy. His former villa, adjacent to the mausoleum, is the Marconi Museum (Italy), which preserves many of his instruments and documents.
• A Guglielmo Marconi sculpture by Attilio Piccirilli stands in Washington, D.C.
• A granite obelisk stands on the cliff top near the site of Marconi's Poldhu Wireless Station in Cornwall, commemorating the first transatlantic wireless transmission.
• Marconi Plaza, an urban park square named after the inventor in 1937, is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It includes a later bronze statue of Marconi, erected in 1975.

Places and organisations named after Marconi include:

Outer space

• The asteroid 1332 Marconia is named in his honour.
• The lunar crater Marconi on the far side of the Moon is also named after him.

Italy

• Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport, the airport of Bologna.
• Guglielmo Marconi University, a private university in Rome.
• Ponte Guglielmo Marconi, a bridge in Rome.

Australia

• Australian football club Marconi Stallions.

Canada

• The Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company of Canada, later CMC Electronics, was created in 1903 by Guglielmo Marconi. In 1925 the company was renamed the Canadian Marconi Company, which was acquired by English Electric in 1953. The company later became CMC Electronics Inc.; its historical radio business was sold in 2002 to Ultra Electronics and became Ultra Electronics TCS Inc., now Ultra Communications.
• The Marconi National Historic Sites of Canada was created by Parks Canada as a tribute to Marconi's role in the development of radio telecommunications. The site is located in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.

United States

• Marconi Conference Center State Historic Park, site of the former transoceanic Marshall Receiving Station in Marshall, California.
• Marconi-RCA Bolinas Transmitting Station in Bolinas, California.
• Station KPH, Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America in Inverness, California.
• Marconi Wireless Telegraphy Station on Oahu's North Shore, Hawaii.
• Marconi Beach in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, part of the Cape Cod National Seashore, located near the site of his first transatlantic wireless signal from the United States to Britain.
• New Brunswick Marconi Station, now the Guglielmo Marconi Memorial Plaza in Somerset, New Jersey.
• Belmar Marconi Station, now the InfoAge Science History Center in Wall Township, New Jersey.
• La Scuola d'Italia Guglielmo Marconi in New York City.
• Marconi Plaza, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Collections

The main Marconi Collection is held by the University of Oxford. It was presented to the university by the Marconi Corporation in 2004 and includes objects, papers, books, patents and other archival material relating to Guglielmo Marconi and the wireless telegraph company he founded.

The objects are held by the History of Science Museum, Oxford, while the documentary archives are kept by the Bodleian Library. The Bodleian catalogue describes the Marconi Archives as comprising papers relating to Marconi and the development of wireless telegraphy from about 1873 to 1957, together with archives of the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company and related Marconi companies.

The History of Science Museum also maintains an online catalogue and exhibition material for the Marconi Collection, describing it as an archive of objects and documents recording Marconi's scientific work and the history of the Marconi wireless telegraph company.

Patents

United Kingdom

• British patent No. 12,039 (1897) "Improvements in Transmitting Electrical impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus therefor". Date of Application 2 June 1896; Complete Specification Left, 2 March 1897; Accepted, 2 July 1897. This was later claimed by Oliver Lodge to contain ideas of his own which he had not patented.
• British patent No. 7,777 (1900) "Improvements in Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy". Date of Application 26 April 1900; Complete Specification Left, 25 February 1901; Accepted, 13 April 1901.
• British patent No. 10,245 (1902) "Improvements in Receivers suitable for Wireless Telegraphy", relating to Marconi's magnetic detector.
• British patent No. 5,113 (1904) "Improvements in Transmitters suitable for Wireless Telegraphy". Date of Application 1 March 1904; Complete Specification Left, 30 November 1904; Accepted, 19 January 1905.
• British patent No. 21,640 (1904) "Improvements in Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy". Date of Application 8 October 1904; Complete Specification Left, 6 July 1905; Accepted, 10 August 1905.
• British patent No. 14,788 (1905) "Improvements in or relating to Wireless Telegraphy". Date of Application 18 July 1905; Complete Specification Left, 23 January 1906; Accepted, 10 May 1906.

United States

• U.S. patent 586193 "Transmitting electrical signals", using a Ruhmkorff coil and Morse code key. Filed December 1896; patented July 1897.
• U.S. patent 624516 "Apparatus employed in wireless telegraphy".
• U.S. patent 627650 "Apparatus employed in wireless telegraphy".
• U.S. patent 647007 "Apparatus employed in wireless telegraphy".
• U.S. patent 647008 "Apparatus employed in wireless telegraphy".
• U.S. patent 647009 "Apparatus employed in wireless telegraphy".
• U.S. patent 650109 "Apparatus employed in wireless telegraphy".
• U.S. patent 650110 "Apparatus employed in wireless telegraphy".
• U.S. patent 668315 "Receiver for electrical oscillations".
• U.S. patent 676332 "Apparatus for wireless telegraphy", a later practical version of the system.
• U.S. patent 757559 "Wireless telegraphy system". Filed 19 November 1901; issued 19 April 1904.
• U.S. patent 760463 "Wireless signalling system". Filed 10 September 1903; issued 24 May 1904.
• U.S. patent 763772 "Apparatus for wireless telegraphy", relating to the four-tuned-circuit system later considered in Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America v. United States.
• U.S. patent 786132 "Wireless telegraphy". Filed 13 October 1903.
• U.S. patent 792528 "Wireless telegraphy". Filed 13 October 1903; issued 13 June 1905.
• U.S. patent 884986 "Wireless telegraphy". Filed 28 November 1902; issued 14 April 1908.
• U.S. patent 884987 "Wireless telegraphy".
• U.S. patent 884988 "Detecting electrical oscillations". Filed 2 February 1903; issued 14 April 1908.
• U.S. patent 884989 "Wireless telegraphy". Filed 2 February 1903; issued 14 April 1908.
• U.S. patent 924560 "Wireless signalling system". Filed 9 August 1906; issued 8 June 1909.
• U.S. patent 935381 "Transmitting apparatus for wireless telegraphy". Filed 10 April 1908; issued 28 September 1909.
• U.S. patent 935382 "Apparatus for wireless telegraphy".
• U.S. patent 935383 "Apparatus for wireless telegraphy". Filed 10 April 1908; issued 28 September 1909.
• U.S. patent 954640 "Apparatus for wireless telegraphy". Filed 31 March 1909; issued 12 April 1910.
• U.S. patent 997308 "Transmitting apparatus for wireless telegraphy". Filed 15 July 1910; issued 11 July 1911.
• U.S. patent 1102990 "Means for generating alternating electric currents". Filed 27 January 1914; issued 7 July 1914.
• U.S. patent 1148521 "Transmitter for wireless telegraphy". Filed 20 July 1908; issued 3 August 1915.
• U.S. patent 1226099 "Transmitting apparatus for use in wireless telegraphy and telephony". Filed 31 December 1913; issued 15 May 1917.
• U.S. patent 1271190 "Wireless telegraph transmitter".
• U.S. patent 1377722 "Electric accumulator". Filed 9 March 1918.
• U.S. patent 1981058 "Thermionic valve". Filed 14 October 1926; issued 20 November 1934.
• U.S. patent RE11913 "Transmitting electrical impulses and signals and in apparatus therefor". Filed 1 April 1901; issued 4 June 1901.

See also

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Further reading

• Ahern, Steve, ed. Making Radio. 2nd ed., Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2006. Template:ISBN.
• Aitken, Hugh G. J. Syntony and Spark: The Origins of Radio. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1976. Template:ISBN.
• Aitken, Hugh G. J. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900–1932. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1985. Template:ISBN.
• Baker, W. J. A History of the Marconi Company. London: Methuen, 1970.
• Brodsky, Ira. The History of Wireless: How Creative Minds Produced Technology for the Masses. St. Louis: Telescope Books, 2008.
• Bussey, Gordon. Marconi's Atlantic Leap. Marconi Communications, 2000. Template:ISBN.
• Coe, Douglas, and Kreigh Collins, illus. Marconi, Pioneer of Radio. New York: J. Messner, 1943. Template:LCCN.
• Garratt, G. R. M. The Early History of Radio: From Faraday to Marconi. London: Institution of Electrical Engineers in association with the Science Museum, 1994. Template:ISBN Template:LCCN.
• Geddes, Keith. Guglielmo Marconi, 1874–1937. London: H.M.S.O., Science Museum booklet, 1974. Template:ISBN Template:LCCN.
• Hancock, Harry Edgar. Wireless at Sea: The First Fifty Years. Chelmsford: Marconi International Marine Communication Co., 1950. Template:LCCN.
• Homer, Peter, and Finbar O'Connor. Marconi Wireless Radio Station: Malin Head from 1902. 2014.
• Hughes, Michael, and Katherine Bosworth. Titanic Calling: Wireless Communications During the Great Disaster. Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2012. Template:ISBN.
• Janniello, Maria Grace, Franco Monteleone, and Giovanni Paoloni, eds. One Hundred Years of Radio: From Marconi to the Future of Telecommunications. Venice: Marsilio, 1996.
• Jolly, W. P. Marconi. London: Constable, 1972.
• Larson, Erik. Thunderstruck. New York: Crown Publishers, 2006. Template:ISBN.
• MacLeod, Mary K. Marconi: The Canada Years, 1902–1946. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Nimbus Publishing, 1992. Template:ISBN.
• Marconi, Degna. My Father, Marconi. James Lorimer & Co., 1982. Template:ISBN.
• Perry, Lawrence. "Commercial Wireless Telegraphy." The World's Work: A History of Our Time, vol. V, 1902, pp. 3194–3201.
• Raboy, Marc. Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Template:ISBN.
• Weightman, Gavin. Signor Marconi's Magic Box: The Most Remarkable Invention of the 19th Century and the Amateur Inventor Whose Genius Sparked a Revolution. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2003. Template:ISBN.
• Winkler, Jonathan Reed. Nexus: Strategic Communications and American Security in World War I. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2008.

External links

• Template:Nobelprize including the Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1909, Wireless Telegraphic Communication
• Fondazione Guglielmo Marconi, Villa Griffone, Pontecchio Marconi, Bologna
• Marconi Collection, History of Science Museum, University of Oxford
• Marconi Archives, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
• Testimony of Guglielmo Marconi, British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry into the sinking of RMS Titanic
• Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America v. United States, 320 U.S. 1 (1943), U.S. Supreme Court