jfohn L,. Baird 21 



plished six months later. Before an audience which 

 included William Le Queux, the novelist, Baird trans- 

 mitted coarse shadows from a transmitter to a receiving 

 apparatus. A tiny step forward, and others, including 

 Jenkins, the American inventor, had accomplished as 

 much, but it fired Baird' s hopes. 



The authors believe that that first successful experiment 

 at Hastings will be associated in history with the first 

 electric light and the first flight of the Wright brothers. 

 It was achieved with an apparatus made out of an old tea 

 chest and an empty biscuit box. The projection lens was 

 a bull's-eye lens costing tenpence ; the driving mechanism 

 was a toy electric motor which cost less than six shillings. 



Through this home-made apparatus Baird's visitors 

 saw on the screen of the receiver a small flickering Maltese 

 cross. It was a small achievement, but a report in the 

 Press aroused the interest of a cinematograph proprietor, 

 who sought out the young inventor and bought a third 

 share in the w r ork for £200. 



Twelve months later Baird had succeeded in transmit- 

 ting outlines of simple objects in black and white. The 

 step from shadows to reflected light had been taken, and 

 Baird was ready to return to London, there to seek the 

 interest and the funds without which he could not con- 

 tinue his work much longer. 



Hastings has since commemorated Baird's association 

 with the town by means of a tablet placed on the walls of 

 the shop where he achieved his first success. 



In London Baird secured as his workroom an attic in 

 Frith Street, Soho, close by the room in which Freize- 

 Green had invented the first crude cinematograph 

 machine, about the time when Edison was experimenting 

 with his kinetoscope. Baird felt convinced that television 

 was now just round the corner, but, like many another 

 inventor, he was to face a dark hour before seeing the 

 dawn of his hopes. 



