RCEWA Case 1 (2015-16): Baird / Clapp Phonovision disc and ephemera
Expert adviser’s statement
Reviewing Committee Secretary’s note: Please note that any illustrations referred to have not been reproduced on the Arts Council England website
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. Brief Description of item(s)
What is it?
Materials relating to the first-ever transmission of trans-Atlantic television pictures, including: Benjamin Clapp’s radio log books for his amateur radio station GK2Z used in the transmission, related paper ephemera, and a gramophone disc containing an early video recording; a system Baird dubbed ‘Phonovision’.
What is it made of?
The log books, and related ephemera, are almost entirely made of paper (fibre product) whilst the Phonovision disc is an ordinary 78 rpm shellac (wax) audio disc.
What are its measurements?
The log books and paper ephemera are mostly A4 size and smaller. There are approximately 400 pages in total. The Phonovision disc is 277mm in diameter and 18mm thick.
Who is the artist/maker and what are their dates?
The paper material written or collected by Mr. Ben Clapp (1894-1990) starting in late 1927 while employed at John Logie Baird’s (1888-1946) company, Baird Television Limited, (1926-1939) which Clapp began working for in November 1926. The disc was made by the Columbia Graphophone Company, Ltd. Clapp had no involvement in making the Phonovision video recordings – this was done by two other Baird assistants, J J Denton, and Wally Fowlkes.
What date is the item?
The log book and ephemera cover the period of experiments from autumn 1927 until February 1928 which concern the successful trans-Atlantic transmission. The Phonovision recording was made on 20 September 1927 according to a label on the disc.
What condition is it in?
I have been able to examine photocopies of the log book and ephemera, the paper materials appear to be in very good condition overall. The Phonovision disc, which I have had the opportunity to examine directly, has only one or two noticeable scratches, and still has its paper centre label.
2. Context
Provenance
Benjamin Clapp by descent (private collection) - sold 2014. The Phonovision disc was on loan to the National Media Museum 2003-2014.
Key literary and exhibition references
John Logie Baird, Television and Me (Edinburgh, Mercat Press, 2004)
Russell Burns, John Logie Baird: Television Pioneer (London, Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2000)
Antony Kamm and Malcolm Baird, John Logie Baird: A Life (Edinburgh, NMSE - Publishing Ltd., 2002)
Donald F McLean, Restoring Baird’s Image (London, Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2000)
In February 2003, amateur radio operators in the UK and the US celebrated the 75th anniversary of the inaugural trans-Atlantic TV transmission by recreating the event. They did six days of on-air testing over a four-week period, lasting about two hours a day.
3. Waverley criteria
Which of the Waverley criteria does the item meet? (If it is of ‘outstanding significance for the study of some particular branch of art learning or history’ which area of art learning or history).
This collection meets Waverley criteria one and three.
Very briefly why?
This collection documents a major event in the history of national and international television and clearly meets two of the Waverley criteria. It is closely connected with early British television history and is of outstanding significance for the study of the history of television and for our wider understanding of twentieth century communications.
DETAILED CASE
1. Detailed description of item(s) if more than in Executive summary, and any comments.
What does it depict?
Some time between November 1926 and April 1927 – John Logie Baird and his assistant, Benjamin Clapp came up with the idea to rig up a receiving station and television receiver in America and transmit the pictures over telephone lines from Baird’s laboratories in London, to Clapp’s house in Surrey where he operated a powerful transmitter station.
Prior to any press demonstration, careful trans-Atlantic radio tests would need to be conducted, and Clapp’s station log books depict how these were done three times a week. At one point, they endeavoured to transmit the image, recorded on a gramophone disc, of one of Baird’s ventriloquist dummy test subjects (Stookie Bill). Reception was not successful, possibly because of problems associated with the synchronising arrangements.
A single ‘Phonovision’ disc in the collection, numbered SWT515-4 is the only disc known to depict images of ‘Stookie Bill’, one of Baird’s famous ventriloquist dummy test subjects. (Baird in fact had at least two ‘Stookie Bills’ in regular use).
What does it tell us about that period?
This material tells us about television in its earliest experimental stages, as well as revealing how it fit with the amateur radio culture and technology of the period. The electro-mechanical system Baird and his colleagues championed was simple and low-resolution, but could travel long distances. The publicity generated by demonstrations such as the trans-Atlantic television transmission inspired other companies to start or expand their television efforts, both in Britain and abroad.
Who made it/painted it/wrote it?
The log books and other paper material in this collection were primarily written or collected by Ben Clapp himself (1894-1990) during his period of employment at John Logie Baird’s (1888-1946) company, Baird Television Limited, which he had worked at since November 1926.
The disc would have been originally purchased as a blank made by the Columbia Graphophone Company, Ltd. in 1927. However, Clapp had no involvement in making the Phonovision recording. This work was done by two other assistants, J J Denton and Wally Fowlkes.
No. of comparable items by the same artist already in the UK, in both public and private collections?
Because Ben Clapp was the key assistant working on the first trans-Atlantic television transmission, and the experiment used his own personal short wave transmitter, there is no remotely comparable material in existence anywhere illustrating this historic event so significantly and to such a high level of detail and accuracy.
Whilst there are five original Phonovision discs known to survive in the UK, the recording on each disc is unique. This is the only surviving disc to have been owned by Mr. Clapp, and it is also the oldest surviving disc.
2. Detailed explanation of the outstanding significance of the item(s).
Significance of figures associated with the item(s): maker/client/owners?
Benjamin Clapp, who started working for Baird in November 1926, was John Logie Baird’s first full-time technical assistant was the author and/or owner of the G2KZ station, its log books, and the ephemera.
John Logie Baird was the inventor of several electro-mechanical and colour television systems, and the first to demonstrate true television images on 26 January, 1926. He went on to pioneer several systems of television until his death in 1946. He was the first person to have his image first televised across the Atlantic.
Elissa Landi, the famous Italian-born film actress was intended to be the first person whose image was transmitted across the Atlantic, but images were not successfully received on the first night.
Bill Fox, a Press Association journalist and a long-time associate of Baird, had his image transmitted. Mia Howe, the wife of the AP representative in London, had her image transmitted.
Oliver Hutchinson, Baird’s first business partner (from the earlier soap days of Baird’s Speedy Cleaner), is referred to in the material. He went to the U.S. for the reception part of the demonstration. Robert Hart, 2CVJ, of Hartsdale, New York, whose receiver was used to feed the signals to the television receiver during the public demonstration.
Significance of subject-matter?
Television is one of the most influential inventions of the twentieth century. Britain led the world in television technology in the 1920s due to pioneering work of John Logie Baird and his colleagues. This material uniquely illustrates a key British television ‘first’, the transmission of television across the Atlantic, which would go on to have a massive impact. In 1945, British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke proposed a world-wide communications system which would function by means of three satellites equally spaced apart in earth orbit. In 1962, Telstar 1 relayed the second television images across the Atlantic, from the US to Europe. Direct-to-home satellite TV would start 20 years later when Satellite Television Ltd. (later Sky1) launched. With the arrival of the digital age, the fibre-optic cable of the internet has further imploded space and time. The merger of television with the computer has reduced barriers to the production, storage, and sharing of video images across borders and oceans. Trans-oceanic television is today an everyday occurrence, and thus an integral, yet ‘invisible’ part of our culture.
On 11th February 1928 the New York Times reported, ‘[Baird’s] success deserves to rank with Marconi’s sending of the letter “S” across the Atlantic— the first intelligible signal ever transmitted from shore to shore in the development of transoceanic radio telegraphy.’ Whilst the story was widely circulated in the North American press, the British press coverage was more conservative. Nonetheless, Mr. Clapp makes a brief appearance in the British Pathe film, Seeing by Wireless (1929). He is seen at his Coulsdon home alongside the G2KZ transmitter station referred to throughout the log books. Also shown is the G2KZ aerial - a long cable extending from an upper window into the back garden.
Significant previous research has been conducted and published using some of the material, (see Appendix 1.), but otherwise, it has certainly not been accessible outside a very small community of television historians, some of whom are now deceased.
Significance of materials/process/usage?
Prior to any press demonstration, trans-Atlantic television tests needed to be conducted, and these were done three times a week. The log books illustrate the many scientific and technical challenges, and atmospheric complications involved in this process.
Phonovision is a television recording made on a 78rpm record. This technique was workable for the reason that low resolution television images in the late 1920s contained relatively little information. In that respect it was similar to audio recordings of the time.
Baird named these gramophone discs Phonovision. (See Appendix 2.) As well as being extremely rare, disc SWT515-4 is the only surviving disc associated with the trans-Atlantic television experiments. SWT515-4 is the earliest Phonovision disc in existence, and thus the world’s earliest surviving video recording. Each Phonovision recording is entirely unique. It is the only surviving disc to contain images of ‘Stookie Bill’, (one of at least two ‘Stookie Bills’ in regular use).
Is/are the item(s) of local/regional/national importance?
This collection documents a major event in the history of national and international television (Britain and the United States). It can be associated with 133 Long Acre in Covent Garden, London where the Baird studio was located, but is most relevant to Ben Clapp’s home at 40 Warwick Road in Coulsden, Surrey where his G2KZ transmitter station was located. The house is still there today.
Summary of related items in public/private ownership in the UK
There are no similar documents or objects relating to G2KZ and the inaugural trans-Atlantic transmission other than these, and although a number of Phonovision recordings were made by Baird Television Limited from late 1927 to mid-1928, today only five of these survive. The National Media Museum keeps and preserves three within the National Television Collection, while one is in a private collection in the UK.
Appendix 1: Key Literary and Exhibition References
John Logie Baird, Television and Me (Edinburgh, Mercat Press, 2004)
Russell Burns, John Logie Baird: Television Pioneer (London, Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2000)
Antony Kamm and Malcolm Baird, John Logie Baird: A Life (Edinburgh, NMSE - Publishing Ltd., 2002)
Donald McLean, Restoring Baird’s Image (London, Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2000)
Appendix 2: Inventory of surviving Phonovision discs*
Label Date Disc IB notes on Surface Label writing Test Record SWT515-4 Stamp: - Private collection Television 20/9/27 20 Sep Export Licence 515-4-GS. Columbia 1927 requested Graphophone Company, Ltd. Test Record RWT620-4 Red ink #4 NMeM – Television Television. Not good. AP stamp: RWT620-4 (or HP) 620-4 Columbia 10 Jan EC Graphophone Company, 1928 #3 Wally Ltd. (No Label) No date #6 NMeM – Television RWT620-6 ‘Profile & Front’ #2 Test Record Stamp: RWT620- Lost – had belonged to 10 Jan 11 EC#11 Baird’s wartime 1928 #2 assistant E.G.O. Anderson
Hand-written: ‘Baird ‘Made RWT620- NMeM – Television Phonovision record. Shows in 11 EC#11 (on public display) man’s head in motion’. 1928)’ #2 Hand-written: ‘Baird ‘Made RWT115-3 Private collection Phonovision record. Shows 28 ‘Miss lady moving head and March Pounsford’ smoking cigarette’. 1928’ Autographed, J.L. Baird
*expanded from table in Restoring Baird’s Image (McLean, 2000)