View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by White Rose E-theses Online Beyond Marconi: the roles of the Admiralty, the Post Office, and the Institution of Electrical Engineers in the invention and development of wireless communication up to 1908. Elizabeth Mary Bruton Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of PhD. The University of Leeds School of Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science December 2012 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2012 The University of Leeds and Elizabeth Mary Bruton The right of Elizabeth Mary Bruton to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to my supervisors, Professor Graeme Gooday and Dr Stephen Lax, for their assistance with the production of this PhD. Their support, encouragement, and feedback have been invaluable during the production of this thesis and have been very much appreciated. In particular, Professor Gooday has been more than generous with his time, expertise, and academic connections, for which I am especially grateful and thankful. Thanks are also due to my two examiners – Dr Jonathan Topham and Dr Ben Marsden – for their constructive and helpful comments on my thesis. I would also like to offer special thanks to the two archival partners for this project, the Institution of Engineering & Technology archives and library and the British Telecom archives. Particular thanks go to Anne Locker, Asha Marvin, John Coupland, and Sarah Hale at IET archives and library and David Hay at BT archives, all of whom have been most generous in sharing their in-depth knowledge of archive materials and related historical background. The various opportunities offered by the collaborative nature of the project have been greatly appreciated. I have had the good fortune to present various sections of this thesis and related research at assorted conferences, home and abroad, and would like to think all of those who attended and provided valuable feedback as the thesis has progressed. Further thanks go to the staff and my fellow postgraduate students at the University of Leeds. It has been a real privilege to work and learn alongside such a knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful community of scholars. This project would not have been possible without the generosity of the Arts and Humanities Research Council to whom I am extremely grateful. Much-appreciated financial support for archival and conference visits has also been received from the University of Leeds, the British Society for the History of Science, the Society for the History of Technology, and the International Committee for the History of Technology. I would also like to offer thanks to my family – Mum, Dad, Claire, and Thomas – for their love, support, and regular supply of Barry's Irish tea. I also wish to extend my sincere thanks to my partner Camen Lei for her encouragement, proofreading, and regular cups of tea. Many thanks go to Dominic Berry, Rebecca Bowd, Dr Robert Bradley, Julie Davies, Jo Elcoat, and Camen Lei for taking the time to proofread and provide constructive criticism. All errors in this text are mine. iii Abstract One of the first histories of wireless communications, J.J. Fahie's A History of Wireless Telegraphy 1838-1899 (1899), was written by a contemporary to many of the early practitioners within its pages and featured an illustrated list entitled “The Arch Builders of Wireless Telegraphy”. This list stretched from key contributors to the early study of electromagnetism such as Ampère, Faraday, and Maxwell through to developers of early wireless apparatus and systems such as Branly, Lodge, Preece, and Marconi. The equal recognition recorded to these twelve men and the collective contribution of scientists, engineers, government employees, along with men of commerce, to the embryonic field of wireless communications has been mostly ignored in the existing body of scholarship on wireless telecommunications. In this thesis, I offer an early history of wireless communications deeply familiar to contemporaries but take a novel approach and study the roles of institutions rather than individuals. Traditionally institutions are presented as grateful consumers and passive users of telecommunication systems. I utilise contemporary periodicals and rich yet underused archival resources in order to map the influence, agency, and roles of three historic case studies – the Admiralty, the Post Office, and the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) – in wireless communications. Furthermore I will consider how these institutions constrained the activities of the Marconi Company. This thesis begins with a consideration of the community, expertise, and practices of wireless practitioners centred about the Post Office and IEE that pre-dated the discovery of Hertzian waves and Marconi's arrival in Britain in 1896. Furthermore I will explore the technical expertise located within the Royal Navy and show how this shaped military demand for wireless communication in the early twentieth century. The final two chapters of this thesis explore the influence and agency of the Admiralty and the Post Office in domestic legislation and international regulations of wireless communications. This thesis demonstrates how and why these “institutional innovations” and activities shaped this technology during its formative years and laid the foundation stone for wireless communications and its successes in Britain and beyond. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................ii Abstract...............................................................................................................................iii Table of Contents................................................................................................................iv List of Abbreviations and Acronyms....................................................................................vi Chapter 1: Introduction.......................................................................................................1 1.1 Introduction........................................................................................................1 1.2 Heroes, Hagiography, and Historiography........................................................15 1.3 Historical Context & Timeline...........................................................................24 1.3.1 Political Context...................................................................................25 1.3.2 The Post Office.....................................................................................26 1.3.3 The Admiralty and the Royal Navy.......................................................28 1.3.4 The Institution of Electrical Engineers..................................................30 1.3.5 The Marconi Company.........................................................................33 1.4 Overview..........................................................................................................36 1.5 Research Methodology.....................................................................................39 1.6 Research materials, sources, and resources.....................................................41 1.7 What we talk about when we talk about wireless............................................42 1.8 Conclusion........................................................................................................46 Chapter 2: 'Something in the Air': The Post Office and early wireless experiments, 1882-1899 ...................................................................................................................................47 2.1 Introduction......................................................................................................47 2.2 The Post Office and Telecommunications Legislation.......................................51 2.3 Wireless Experiments, 1882-1893....................................................................54 2.4 Wireless Experiments, 1893-1896....................................................................66 2.5 1896 and all that: Marconi's arrival in Britain...................................................67 2.6 The End of the Road: Wireless in the Post Office, 1896-1899..........................74 2.7 Conclusion........................................................................................................76 Chapter 3: Electrical Potential: Wireless and the Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1898-1908 ...................................................................................................................................79 3.1 Introduction......................................................................................................79 3.2 A Brief History of the Institution of Electrical Engineers...................................83 3.3 The Institution of Electrical Engineers – An epicentre for early wireless practitioners?................................................................................................89