20 Master Minds of Modern Science 



abandon business cares for a time, so that he sold out his 

 business to a Glasgow merchant. 



A visit to the West Indies followed, and upon his return 

 he had to look round for further work which would 

 provide him with a livelihood. 



For a time he bought and sold Australian honey, and 

 with the profits made on this side-line he bought an 

 interest in another firm, which sold coconut dust as a 

 fertilizer. The business proved very profitable, but once 

 more his health broke down, and he was ordered a com- 

 plete rest. He went to Buxton, and in August 1921 came 

 back to ' start all over again. 1 



He built up another business, this time selling soap, but 

 once more his health proved unequal to the strain of com- 

 mercial life. He suffered a nervous breakdown, this being 

 so severe that the doctors told him that he must abandon 

 for ever the thought of a business career. 



There must have been very little hope in the heart of 

 the young Scot when he left London for the third time to 

 live quietly in Hastings, on the South Coast. Yet had he 

 but known it, he was at that moment within two years 

 of the beginning of discoveries for which his name will 

 always be honoured. 



Debarred from active business life, he turned once again 

 to scientific research, and it was natural that the particu- 

 lar branch of science which attracted him should be the 

 investigation of television, to which he had been so 

 strongly attracted when a student. 



During the years when he had been working as an engi- 

 neer and as a business man others had been struggling 

 with this very problem. But they had made no pro- 

 gress; the search for the secret of television remained 

 where it was when Baird had been a student at Glasgow. 



He settled down to work in a room over a shop in 

 Queen's Arcade, Hastings, and it was here that his first 

 small step toward television was successfully accom- 



