Marconi experiments with radio waves

Marconi experiments | 1897 | Period: Victorian

Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) was born in Bologna, Italy, the second son of a wealthy Italian landowner and an Irish mother.

Marconi travelled to Britain in 1896 and filed his final specification for the world's first patent for a system of telegraphy using waves, without wires. He carried out demonstrations on Salisbury Plain and also across the Bristol Channel.

The Isle of Wight was the scene of many early Marconi experiments. In 1897 he set up an aerial and installed apparatus in the grounds of the Royal Needles Hotel, Alum Bay, where he successfully communicated with two hired paddle steamers.

The Marconi Monument within The Needles Park marks the precise location where he undertook his pioneering work that led to radio and all the telecommunications we know today.