Marconi’s New Street Works 1912 – 2012
Birthplace of the Wireless Age – by Tim Wander
With the centenary of the New Street Works fast approaching ex-Marconi engineer and historian Tim Wander has spent the past year or more putting together a history of the famous factory. The book has just gone to print and is due out in February. At over 370 pages, with more than 130 photographs, the book charts the history and development of the site and tells the stories behind the world beating and world saving technologies that were developed there. New Street was the birthplace of many technologies that have shaped and changed our modern world including radio, broadcasting, television, radar, satellite communications and even the computer and the technology behind the mobile telephone.
But most of all the Marconi New Street centenary book tells some of the personal stories of the men and women who worked there from the 1930s onward. Well over a hundred people have contributed to a unique oral history – everything from a paragraph or humorous anecdote through to a career history. With careful editing they have been woven together to form a permanent record of the factory and the people who served there.
The New Street story recounts many stories of the famous factory across one hundred years. It respectfully remembers the losses of wartime but also recounts happier times of comradeship, laughter and a sense of belonging that will perhaps never occur again. This was the goal behind the new book and Tim genuinely believes that it is important that all the memories and reminiscences of past years are recorded for future generations.
Many of the photographs in the book are previously unseen and span the entire history of the New Street site, including some taken earlier this year inside the main factory showing the dreadful state of decay and dilapidation now rain water has got into the site though the vandalised roof.
‘Marconi’s New Street Works, 1912 – 2012. Birthplace of the Wireless Age’ by Tim Wander will be available direct from the publishers in mid February – see http://www.authorsonline.co.uk – and on sale at the Veterans reunion in April. A full review of the book will appear as soon as it is available.
Tim Wander has previously published ‘2MT Writtle The Birth of British Broadcasting’, (1988 and a new rewritten edition in 2010), ‘Marconi on the Isle of Wight’ (2000 with a new revised edition due out 2012) and ‘A Kind of Magic – The Birth of the Wireless Age’ – also due out early in 2012. For more information see http://www.2mtwrittle.com.