yohn L. Baird 23 



with string, glue, and sealing-wax, but in the scientific 

 world the importance of his advance was recognized. 



The demonstration given in April 1925 showed only the 

 transmission of outlines, and nothing in the shape of a 

 human face or any object having light and shade or detail 

 could be reproduced. At the end of the fortnight, there- 

 fore, the apparatus was hurried back to Soho, where more 

 months of tireless experiment passed before the remaining 

 problems were at length solved. The most dramatic 

 moment in the history of television cannot be better 

 described than in the inventor's own words : 



It was on an October afternoon in 1925 that I experienced 

 the one great thrill which research work has brought me. 

 After weeks of steady progress, on this particular afternoon 

 the dummy's head which I used for experimental purposes 

 showed upon the receiving screen not as a black and white 

 effect, but as a real image, with details, and with gradation of 

 shading. I was vastly excited and ran downstairs to obtain a 

 living object. The first person to appear was the office boy 

 from the office below, a youth named William Taynton, and 

 he rather reluctantly consented to submit himself to the 

 experiment. 



I placed him before the transmitter, and went to the next 

 room to see what would appear on the receiving screen. The 

 screen was entirely blank, and no effort of tuning would pro- 

 duce any results. Puzzled and very disappointed, I went back 

 to the transmitter, and there the cause of the failure became at 

 once evident. The boy, scared by the intensely bright light, 

 had backed a yard or so away from the transmitter. I gave 

 him half a crown, and persuaded him that there was no danger, 

 whereupon he took up his position again before the apparatus. 

 This time his head appeared on the receiving screen quite 

 clearly. It is curious to consider that the first person in the 

 world to be televised should have required a bribe to accept 

 the invitation. 



Heartened by success, Baird decided to submit his 

 achievement to an expert and critical audience. He 



