This article was first published on Friday 23 April 2004 in the Essex Chronicle to whom due acknowledgement and thanks is given.
This is how the statue of wireless pioneer Marconi could look when it is moved to a new home in Chelmsford town centre, as suggested by the Essex Chronicle last year. Essex Chronicle picture editor Mike Rose mocked up this computer-generated image to illustrate plans to transfer the statue from its current location at the Essex Records Office to outside Lloyds Bank.
Council chief executive Martin Easteal revealed: “Because the Marconi Centre is clearly not going to materialise at Chelmer Waterside, at least in the time frame previously planned, the future of the Marconi Statue has been reviewed. “A team of council officers from the Architects and Town Planning Services is now looking at a prominent site in the High Street – close to High Chelmer and Lloyds Bank – as its final home”.
Marconi Veterans Association vice chairman Peter Turrall said: “The Essex Chronicle and the Veterans Association have said all along it should go in the High Street. We are delighted with the move.”
The following stamps were kindly sent to us by the ex secretary to Sir Robert Telford, Pauline Easton, who had received them from a friend in Canada. She wished the stamps to be lodged in a safe and appropriate place.
The envelope shown here, together with a sheet of the unused stamps, will be placed in the care of Chelmsford Museums and held at Sandford Mill. The Mill also holds many other Marconi related artefacts.
Sandford Mill is not open on a daily basis but holds several open days throughout the year. For more details phone +44 1245 475498 or view the web site at http://www.chelmsford.gov.uk/museums/engine.htm During these open days the stamps and other items can be viewed on request.
The text of the inscription on the reverse of the envelope is reproduced below
English on the left column
CANADA’S world-renowned expertise in global communications technologies is rooted in a history of impressive breakthroughs. This year marks the centenaries of two milestones in the evolution of overseas telecommunications.
On October 31, 1902, Sir Sandford Fleming sent the first around-the-world telegram from and to Ottawa, via a globe-encircling network of deep-sea telegraph cables constituting the British Empire’s “All-Red Line.” The transmission, which amazingly took just a day, was made possible by the completion of Fleming’s brainchild, the 13,000-kilometre Pacific Cable originating at Bamfield, BC.
The following December 15, the first transatlantic message by wireless – technology dubbed “whisper in the air” by a Cape Breton newspaper – was sent from transmitting towers in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, to Poldhu, England. The Canadian government-funded achievement was the culmination of years of work by the “Wizard of Wireless,” Guglielmo Marconi.
LOWE-MARTIN
DESIGN / CONCEPTION: SUSAN WARR
ILLUSTRATION : BONNIE ROSS
PHOTOS : BRITISH COLUMBIA ARCHIVES. C. BRADBURY / ARCHIVES DE LA COLOMBIE-BRITANNIQUE, C. BRADBURY, BEATON INSTITUTE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF CAPE BRETON / INSTITUT BEATON, COLLEGE UNIVERSITAIRE DU CAP-BRETON
This is how the statue of wireless pioneer Marconi could look when it is moved to a new home in Chelmsford town centre, as suggested by the Essex Chronicle last year. Essex Chronicle picture editor Mike Rose mocked up this computer-generated image to illustrate plans to transfer the statue from its current location at the Essex Records Office to outside Lloyds Bank.
