Photographs used in the Marconi centenary exhibition in the State Library vestibule, April-July 1974, including photographs of a bust of Marconi, Ashfield

PXA 1364

fonds

April-July 1974

Graphic Materials, Photographs

910189

20 photographs - gelatin silver - 13.5 x 20 cm. (smallest); 20.5 x 26 cm. (largest)

The photographs were donated to the Library by AWA via Mr Philip Geeves, AWA Archivist. They were used in the Marconi centenary exhibition created by Paul Brunton and Rose Smith, which was set up in the State Library of NSW from 10 April 1974 to 15 July 1974. The originals were held in the archives of AWA. After the exhibition closed the archivist wrote: "The Library exhibit generated splendid feedback, both to AWA and to the electronics industry. We have been contacted by countless people - seeking information, disposing of vintage equipment and memorabilia, by teachers in search of project information, by service clubs enlisting lecturers, by a Sydney physician tracing his mother's family to the distaff side of a Marconi engineer and by other Australian libraries seeking to establlish co-operative arrangements ... a member of the public even managed to identify the one photograph of which we ourselves were uncertain!" (ML correspondence file).

Photographs are captioned on reverse, and include:

Site testing for the high power long wave transocean service, Australia-England, 1922: AWA's first "mobile laboratory", operated by Eric Burbury and Charles Tapp. Photo probably taken near Mulgoa;
Marconi station at Queenscliff, Victoria, which first bridged the Bass Strait with wireless signals in 1906;
Marconi station at Devonport, Tasmania;
Part of the 300 kilowatt synchronous spark transmitting apparatus at Caernarvon, Wales, from which wireless signals were first sent direct to Australia on 22 September 1918;
Dame Nellie Melba's broadcast from the Marconi works, Chelmsford, England, on 15 June 1920;
Marconi opening the Sydney Electrical and Radio Exhibition, 1930, by operating a key in his yacht "Elettra", to switch on 2800 lights at Sydney Town Hall;
Original 2FC 5kw transmitter at Pennant Hills;
Laurence Halbert & Arthur Cochrane, 2FC announcers, c.1926;
The first cathode ray tube television receiver built at the Marconi works, Chelmsford, England, and used in Australia for the historic 1932 transmissions;
Dedication of marble bust of Guglielmo Marconi in the garden of the AWA Radio-Electric Works, Ashfield on 14 March 1964, with Sir Lionel Hooke, then Chairman of AWA, and the inventor's son, Marchese Giulio Marconi, who unveiled the bust

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