158 



DISCOVERY 



indeed, in some instances, his co-operation was defin- 

 itely alluded to as essential to it. On the other hand, 

 I have quite recently come across certain ideas, current 

 among the peasants of the Fayum, which do point to a 

 certain amount of ignorance in this respect, though not 

 associated with the rites described in this paper. 



Imperial Wireless 

 Communications 



By Lt.-Col. C. G. Crawley, R.M.A., M.I.E.E. 



For several months past there has been an unin- 

 terrupted flow of articles, leaders, and letters in the 

 Press on the subject of Imperial wireless communica- 

 tions, and the matter as a whole has become so obscured 

 in clouds of controversial detail that it may be of 

 interest now to take stock of realities, past and present, 

 and hopes for a future. 



Imperial wireless may be said to date from October 

 1900, when the Marconi Company started the erection 

 of the first high-power station in the world, at Poldhu 

 in Cornwall. Unfortunately the first check in the long 

 list which has followed came within a year when the 

 masts at Poldhu were wTecked by heavy gales in the 

 autumn of 1901. The year 1902 was spent in making 

 good this loss, and in further improvements, and on 

 December 18 Mr. Marconi opened up a fresh page of 

 history by sending a wireless message from the Cape 

 Breton Station in Nova Scotia to King Edward VII 

 in England. The following year, 1903, saw the 

 institution of a regular wireless service to ships at 

 sea, and in 1904 the first Imperial service was working, 

 though far indeed from regularly, between this country 

 and Canada. In 1905 the Marconi Company started 

 the erection of a high-power station at Clifden on the 

 west coast of Ireland, and in 1907 a commercial trans- 

 atlantic service was opened between this station and 

 Glace Bay in Nova Scotia. 



It had thus taken seven years of unflagging hard 

 work and resourcefulness, in face of what then seemed 

 to many quite insurmountable obstacles, for Mr. 

 Marconi and his small band of enthusiastic followers 

 to forge the first link Ln our Imperial wdreless com- 

 munications. 



During the next four years, on the practical side, 

 the Clifden-Glace Bay service went on improving (but 

 at a rate which gave no sleepless nights to shareholders 

 in cable companies) ; and on the theoretical side, the 

 idea of an Imperial system progressed equally slowly, 

 until it culminated eventually in a decision at the 



Imperial Conference of 1911 to the effect that an 

 Imperial wireless chain of stations should be erected 

 without delay. In July 1912 the Postmaster-General 

 entered into a contract with the Marconi Company for 

 the erection of the chain. By this contract the Com- 

 pany were to erect stations in England, Egypt, East 

 Africa, South Africa, India, Singapore, and Hong- 

 Kong, the chain being extended from Singapore to 

 Australia by the erection of a station by the Australian 

 Government at Port Darwin. This was the scheme 

 which gave rise to the bitter discussions which led to 

 a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry in the following 

 year. A commencement was made with the con- 

 struction of the English station at Leafield near Ox- 

 ford, and of the Egyptian one at Abu Zabal near 

 Cairo, but the outbreak of war in 1914 resulted in a 

 change of policy, and this scheme of Imperial wireless 

 intercommunication was dropped for a less grandiose 

 one of Imperial wireless ship and shore communication. 

 This latter scheme consisted of the erection of medium- 

 power stations, primarily for ship work, at Jamaica, 

 Bermuda, St. Johns (Newfoundland), Demerara, 

 Aden, Mauritius, Durban, Port NoUoth, Bathurst 

 (Gambia), Seychelles, Colombo, Singapore, Hong-Kong, 

 as well as more powerful ones at Ascension and Falk- 

 land Islands. Jamaica and Bermuda stations were 

 erected by the Admiralty, and the remainder on 

 behalf of the Admiralty by the Marconi Company. 

 These stations, along with a similar one erected by the 

 Admiralty in the Azores (Portuguese territory), proved 

 of great value during the war for the purpose for which 

 they were designed, viz. communications with ships 

 and occasional point to point strategic communications, 

 but they were not powerful enough, nor could they 

 be adapted for commercial working as an Imperial 

 chain. 



As soon as the war was over, and the Marconi 

 Company had been awarded ua the law courts over 

 half a million pounds sterling as compensation from 

 the Government for the abandonment of the larger 

 scheme, the desirability of pushing on with some 

 such scheme again became apparent, especially as the 

 cables were much congested, and the consequent delays 

 were seriously hampering the reorganisation of business 

 throughout the Empire. In 1919 the Government 

 decided to go on at once with the erection by the Post 

 Office of the stations near Oxford and Cairo, and to 

 appoint a Committee to go into the whole question of 

 Imperial wireless communications. The Oxford station 

 was opened hxst August, and has been used for various 

 long-distance communications ; the Cairo one has 

 just been completed, and the Oxford-Cairo service is 

 now in operation. 



The Committee appointed by the Government, the 

 Imperial Wireless Telegraphy Committee, under the 



