Category: News

We regret to announce that Basil Francis, who was our president in 2015, died on 2 May.

Basil joined what was then Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company  in 1939 just after war had been declared and worked in the Installation Design Division that had recently been transferred from London to the research centre at Great Baddow.  Here he started a Mechanical Engineering course at Mid Essex Technical College but this was interrupted in 1941 when he volunteered for the RAF.  Here he gained his wings and flew various aircraft ending up in Burma before being demobbed in 1946.

He returned to MWT in the drawing office and completed his college training.  In the DO he moved up eventually becoming head on the Installation Drawing Office at New Street before retiring in 1989.

His funeral was at Chelmsford Crematorium on Wednesday 30th May and afterwards there was a wake at Little Channels Golf Club.

We regret to announce the death of David Samways on December 28.  He joined Marconi’s in 1957 on an HND Thin Sandwich course, completing the course in 1961.  David left the Company in 1968 and joined Honeywell Computers eventually settling in Australia in 1979 where he remained until his death

He is not, therefore, a Marconi Veteran but because of the intensive work he has done over the years, as described below, he has made a very significant contribution to the recording of the history and raising awareness of The Marconi Companies and their employees and is thus remembered on this site.

David started the site MOFS in 2011 as a place to list the names of the apprentices from the mid nineteen fifties, David having joined Marconi’s at that time.  Over the years the project expanded so that now it covers all engineering apprentices from 1941 to 1989.  The list is far from complete but to date the list holds around 1000 names.

In 2012 he started a collection of Wikis covering the various areas of the Marconi business and these have proved an invaluable repository of Marconi documents both formal and those written by Marconi employees.  He was helped in this by veterans in the UK who still had access to some of the Marconi publications, which have been scanned and added to the Wiki.

Luckily, the Wikis remain accessible so all the data is not lost but the search is now on to find a new moderator for the archive so that it continues to be a Marconi resource.

Further tributes to David from friends and work colleagues can be read Here 

We regret to report the death of veteran Ron Bradbrook on 20 November.  Ron was our President in 2010/11.

The funeral will be at Chelmsford Crematorium on Thursday 11th January 2018 at 1-30 pm.

Ron was born in Barking and moved early on to Writtle. After the benefits of the local school he passed the exams to attend Chelmsford Technical College. A group from the college, including Ron, joined Marconi’s as craft apprentices in 1947. During his apprenticeship he did his National Certificate studies at the Tech.; he had spells at Pottery Lane, Hut 3 at Baddow, Writtle and the dreaded Building 46 in New Street.

After National Service he rejoined Marconi as a development engineer and found himself in Building 46 working for a very fine senior engineer, Douggie Bowers. This is where high powered transmitters started to take over his working life.

Having joined Marconi’s in 1947 his career almost covered the whole era of high power radio transmitters just missing out on the coming into service of the 100kW SWB-18 in 1940.

Ron was closely associated with the development of the BD 272 the first one of which became Sender 93 at Woofferton. In the nineties he undertook the early design work on what was to be Marconi’s last HF transmitter, the 500kW B6132, but retired before it went into service.

Ron was also the senior Marconi engineer responsible for the design of the equipment for the BBC’s re-engineering of its UK MW network of transmitters in 1977 using the 50kW B6034 as it basic building block and for the modification of this transmitter in 1986 to long wave as the B6046 for use at Westerglen and Burghead. At about this time he also was responsible for the overall design of the 10kW B6525 and 20kW B6526 FM transmitters that formed the backbone of the re-engineering of the BBC’s network.

However, this range of activities needed an authoritative voice that could cut through the problems and make a decision. Ron was that man in Building 46.

He encouraged those who tried and put their best efforts into the job and brought the best out of his close associates but he did not have much time for those that did not pull their weight for Marconi’s.