22 Master Minds of Modern Science 



Money ran short. He found it difficult to secure even 

 food. For days he wandered round London with thread- 

 bare clothes, seeking the funds which would enable him to 

 continue his work. No one was interested in television 

 because none believed it to be possible. Despairing, he 

 turned at last to friends, who responded generously. 

 Money was forthcoming, the first tiny company was 

 formed, and the great search for wireless sight was re- 

 newed with fresh vigour. 



One wonders how Baird feels about that dark chapter 

 when he stands beside the case in the Science Museum at 

 South Kensington wherein is preserved for the nation the 

 crude television apparatus with which he transmitted 

 those first outlines, and remembers that for the sake of 

 improving it he went without bread. 



The real turning-point came soon after funds were 

 placed at his disposal. In March 1925 Mr Gordon Sel- 

 fridge, hearing of the remarkable experiments which were 

 taking place in that attic room in Soho, and quick to 

 realize their importance, visited the laboratory. There 

 he was given a demonstration and saw transmitted from 

 one room to another a crude outline of a paper mask. 

 This mask was made to wink by covering one of the eye- 

 holes with white paper, and its mouth could be opened 

 and closed by the covering and uncovering of the slot in 

 the white paper which represented it. 



It was a very elementary experiment, but it convinced 

 the Store King that television was at last coming, and he 

 arranged to pay a substantial sum to have it demonstrated 

 at his store for two weeks. Thus it was that the first 

 public exposition of the wireless transmission of visible 

 outlines was given in Britain by Baird. 



This public demonstration aroused great interest. The 

 layman who expected to see a perfected brass apparatus 

 and mechanism may have been unimpressed by Baird's 

 weird conglomeration of makeshifts fastened together 



