yohn L. Baird 19 



one rough night a wire was blown down, and, catching 

 a passing cabman round the neck, it jerked him off his 

 cab. Thinking that the wire had been erected by the 

 newly formed National Telephone Company, the cabman 

 promptly complained to them, and thus it was discovered 

 that they had an unauthorized rival in the field. 



There followed other experiments with an antiquated 

 motor-car which Baird purchased and pushed home to 

 the manse where he lived, while later he cultivated his 

 intense interest in the new world of science then being 

 opened up by studying at the Royal Technical College 

 and Glasgow University, and thereafter by serving as an 

 apprentice in a mot or- works. 



In this first situation he developed that capacity for 

 hard work which was afterward to be so invaluable in his 

 prolonged one-man experiments. The works opened at 

 5.30 a.m., and overtime was the rule rather than the 

 exception, so that during most of the year Baird left 

 home before daylight and did not return until late at 

 night. 



He left the motor-works to take up a post under the 

 Scottish Electricity Commission as Assistant Superin- 

 tendent of the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company. 

 War came, and he volunteered for service, but was 

 rejected as physically unfit. He returned to his post in 

 the Power Company, and throughout the War he worked 

 on the machines which supplied power and light to the 

 munition factories and shipyards of the Clyde. Ill-health 

 at last caused him to resign, and it was then that he 

 resolved to use part of his enforced leisure to seek the clue 

 which would make television possible. 



His research work was interrupted by the necessity of 

 rebuilding his health. Immediately after the War he had 

 invented a patent sock which kept the feet warm and dry 

 in any weather. The sock sold widely, and money was 

 beginning to flow in when it became necessary for him to 



