The first direct radio message from England was received in Australia
On the 22nd of September,1918 the first direct radio message from England was received in Australia.
Surprisingly, it was sent from a Transmitting Station in the NW of Wales to a radio station in a suburban house in Wahroonga , a suburb of Sydney.
The message was to the people of Australia from the Prime Minister, W M Hughes.He spoke of his recent visit to the Western Front in France. Hughes, Guglielmo Marconi and Ernest Fisk of Sydney were the principal organisers.
We sketch out the life of Fisk, a remarkable person.
Transcript
first direct wireless message from England to Australia.
Speaker:Hello and welcome to Urban Ambler here.
Speaker:One of the great, benefits of Ling is that you can make chance discoveries about
Speaker:the oddest things in the oddest places.
Speaker:in my last podcast, which I'm afraid was far too long ago, and
Speaker:I will endeavor this year too.
Speaker:Be much more timely.
Speaker:But in that previous podcast, which dealt with Leston du Far, we
Speaker:talked about a house called Prack, which is a very attractive place.
Speaker:Still there, very old place, in what is now called Wari
Speaker:quite close to the station.
Speaker:If you're traveling that way and you wander down worth seeing in itself.
Speaker:But if you walk about three or four blocks roughly northeast of Prack, it
Speaker:will bring you to, the corner of Stewart and Cleveland Streets in Warunga.
Speaker:And just before we go on from there, there's one thing I did forget in the last
Speaker:podcast about Eccleston du far to mention.
Speaker:And that is that his daughter, or one of his daughters was, became a very
Speaker:accomplished and notable mountaineer.
Speaker:And she, uh, she climbed, quite a number of the peaks, uh, in Australia
Speaker:and certainly in New Zealand.
Speaker:So that's something I'll have to follow up.
Speaker:When you're at the corner Stuart and Cleveland Streets, you'll come
Speaker:upon the most wonderful monument, which sits, on one of the corners.
Speaker:Now, I must say that if you'd been walking past there 10 years ago,
Speaker:you probably wouldn't have seen the monument for quite some years.
Speaker:It was, it was overgrown with shrubs, but in recent times, it's
Speaker:all been cleared away and it's, it's visible in all its splendor.
Speaker:I think probably what happened is, on the ery of the broadcast, which
Speaker:took place, at 1:15 PM on the 22nd of September, 1918, I think at the
Speaker:Centenery, that must have cleared it away.
Speaker:it's a very, significant structure.
Speaker:It's quite grand.
Speaker:It's in Sandstone.
Speaker:It's got a sandstone base and then a. A three armed pedestal with,
Speaker:wonderful caste lions, I think you call them Kant in, heraldic circles.
Speaker:And then a very large, sandstone, column.
Speaker:the column itself is, is, topped with an orb.
Speaker:unfortunately.
Speaker:Metal statue of the God Mercury.
Speaker:Now Mercury was a Roman God, and he was known as the swift messenger
Speaker:of the ancient gods, and he must have been an awfully busy God
Speaker:because amongst other things it was said that he ruled over wealth.
Speaker:Good fortune, commerce, fertility.
Speaker:and also, shopkeepers and merchants.
Speaker:So he certainly had a great deal on his plate.
Speaker:the statue was wonderful.
Speaker:He had wings, he had a wing on his helmet.
Speaker:He had wings on his boots, and he carried a short staff, which
Speaker:I think is called a catechist, in his left hand, which was basically
Speaker:a staff entwined by two serpents.
Speaker:So it was quite a, quite a magical, topping to the monument.
Speaker:But for whatever reason, it's not there now.
Speaker:Now, whether that was misadventure or vandalism, I don't know.
Speaker:There's also on the.
Speaker:monument a, a very fine plaque, which very succinctly summarizes
Speaker:the significance, of this monument.
Speaker:And it's in these terms.
Speaker:The first direct wireless message from England to Australia sent under the
Speaker:direction of the Marqueese Marconi.
Speaker:From the Marconi wireless station, Carnarvon Wales was
Speaker:received by Et Fisk Quire.
Speaker:And then his qualifications, he was an engineer, in the experimental wireless
Speaker:station attached to his residence lu here on the 22nd of September, 1918.
Speaker:And as I mentioned, the signal was in fact received at about one 15.
Speaker:It was in Morse code.
Speaker:It was deciphered by another person in the premises, but the monument itself
Speaker:stands on part of the land, which I think must have been given to the
Speaker:council by the then owners of Lucania.
Speaker:But the houses is there, and it's a very lovely, quite substantial house.
Speaker:Now when you're looking at it, what you've gotta imagine is
Speaker:Mr. Fi, and we'll talk the.
Speaker:had worked on this project, this precise project of receiving a radio message
Speaker:from the other side of the world.
Speaker:And in the course of doing that, he directed a very large.
Speaker:metal tower in his backyard.
Speaker:Now, to give you an idea, if you looked at the top of the ridge
Speaker:line of the house and then sort of doubled it up, you'd be getting up
Speaker:towards the height of the tower.
Speaker:And I must say, I can imagine, some of his neighbors weren't overly, delighted by it.
Speaker:And then he also had an arm coming off the aerial to which
Speaker:further wires were attached.
Speaker:Obviously for garnering as much signal as you could.
Speaker:now.
Speaker:This, event, had been a long time in the organization because as you can
Speaker:imagine, an awful lot of things had to be brought together to make it work.
Speaker:And, the basic and principle people involved, although I'm sure there
Speaker:would've been many others, was G Army Marconi, William Morris Hughes, who was
Speaker:then the Prime Minister of Australia.
Speaker:And, uh, Mr. Ernest Thomas Fisk.
Speaker:who've we've mentioned now in preparation for this, um, he'd built the radio
Speaker:station with his, in his premises in the aerial, that I mentioned.
Speaker:he did have, considerable contact with William Morris Hughes, who was
Speaker:a notoriously volatiles character.
Speaker:but they, the two of them got on well and, as we'll hear a bit later, he'd
Speaker:in fact worked for Marconi in the very early years of wireless, both in
Speaker:England, America, and in Australia.
Speaker:And when we come to Fisk, one of the Mattis just touch on is he very
Speaker:interesting character because he had.
Speaker:To be the right man in the right place at the time, or the right
Speaker:person in the right place at the time.
Speaker:And, uh, meeting Marconi, I think probably made, all the difference
Speaker:to the course of his life.
Speaker:Now, the, place of, transmission, was just as unlikely in a way As the
Speaker:receipt of it in a suburban house, in Sydney, the signal was sent from a,
Speaker:small Welsh town, which if you spell it out, is spelled W-A-U-N-F-A-W-R.
Speaker:But as is the wonderful way with the lyrical , Welsh language.
Speaker:I think the best bet I can have at pronouncing it is something like Gu Moore.
Speaker:and I suppose if you look at it, you can see how phonetically that would
Speaker:be the reason that was the place, whereas it sent, and I know the park
Speaker:says it was from Carnarvon in Wales.
Speaker:Well, that's the general area.
Speaker:This little village is partway up towards Mount Snowden, which is of
Speaker:course the highest peak in Wales.
Speaker:And the Marconi company, in 1914 built a very large, high powered long.
Speaker:Wave wireless telegraph, transmissions, transmission station
Speaker:on a hilltop above the, the, village.
Speaker:And not only was it used for the purpose of sending this experimental,
Speaker:the wireless message to Australia, but it was also later the.
Speaker:Station that was used for the first commercial transatlantic wireless service
Speaker:between London and New York, in 1920.
Speaker:So you'll immediately appreciate that the Australian experiment was part of
Speaker:the process, which led to the, commercial service between, Britain and America.
Speaker:just before we leave that, can I just say a couple of things about Marconi?
Speaker:He's traditionally, and I dunno how well known it is generally these
Speaker:days, but certainly in my day, my younger days, Marconi was known
Speaker:as the father of wireless, but in recently just, checking up a few
Speaker:things about him, it emerged that.
Speaker:he in fact may have been beaten, to the, invention of the wireless bay,
Speaker:A man called Tesla of all things.
Speaker:And presumably that's where, the name of the car came from.
Speaker:And it's generally accepted that Tesla.
Speaker:Invented the idea of radio, in about 1892.
Speaker:Now, it may well be that, Tesla, uh, set out the theoretical basis of it,
Speaker:but it was clearly Mark Coney, who was perhaps more the astute businessman,
Speaker:more self-promoter, who in fact, factually brought it into being.
Speaker:And in fact, Marconi received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1909.
Speaker:together with, with another person.
Speaker:and just a other couple of interesting things I found out about Mark.
Speaker:One was that he was not all Italian.
Speaker:He was half Italian and half Irish which would be a wonderfully volatile mix.
Speaker:and he also had no formal education.
Speaker:this is a thing we see time and again when we look back.
Speaker:To these people, in the late 19th, 20th centuries, very often with very little
Speaker:education achieved an enormous amount.
Speaker:and as, you'll hear when we come to talk a little bit about Ernest Fisk in a moment.
Speaker:Fisk also had very limited, Formal education beyond the basic school.
Speaker:now the message that was received, was a message from the Prime
Speaker:Minister from William Morris Hughes.
Speaker:and it specifically prepared the message for the purpose of this transmission.
Speaker:And at the time he was in Europe for discussions concerning the progress or.
Speaker:Lack there of in the war, the first World War, and he was there with, Joseph Cook,
Speaker:who was then his minister for the Navy.
Speaker:Cook was an interesting chap, and I think at a time a bit earlier than
Speaker:1918, in fact, served a short period as Prime Minister, only about 10 months.
Speaker:And he in fact lived, when he was elected to Parliament, in Bacom
Speaker:Hills, in a very modest house.
Speaker:But the message that came, uh.
Speaker:Northwest Wales to Warunga, was to this effect.
Speaker:And this is William Morris's Hughes message.
Speaker:I have just returned from a visit to the battlefields where the valor and dash
Speaker:of the Australian troops saved Ian and forced back the legions of the en enemy.
Speaker:Filled with greater admiration than ever for these glorious men and more
Speaker:convinced that is the duty of their fellow citizens to keep these magnificent
Speaker:battalions up to the, their full strength.
Speaker:that was Hughes's message.
Speaker:And then Joseph Cook followed on, about 10 minutes later.
Speaker:To this effect, the Royal Australian Navy is magnificently bearing
Speaker:its part in the great struggle.
Speaker:The spirit of sailors and soldiers alike is beyond praise.
Speaker:Recent hard fighting, brilliantly successful, but
Speaker:makes reinforcements imperative.
Speaker:Australia hardly realizes the wonderful reputation, which our men.
Speaker:have one, so two very stirring and wonderfully direct
Speaker:messages, from those two.
Speaker:Great Australian leaders.
Speaker:Now, just to put all this in context, so we see how it relates
Speaker:to the development of radio.
Speaker:Can I just run through a little bit of the history of.
Speaker:Radio.
Speaker:the man who's generally acknowledged as having discovered, or proved the existence
Speaker:of electromagnetic waves was a chap called Heinrich, Rudolph Hertz, H-E-R-T-Z.
Speaker:Now, he was born in Hamburg in what was then, I think Prussia, but.
Speaker:What we'd call Germany on the 22nd of February, 1857, and quite extraordinarily
Speaker:for what we're about to hear he achieved.
Speaker:He died in Bond, Germany on New Year's, day eight in 94.
Speaker:He was about 36 years of age.
Speaker:We see this again and again when I did the pod on.
Speaker:George Bass, he was 32 when he sailed out.
Speaker:The heads of Sydney was never seen again.
Speaker:And what these people achieved in a short time makes one feel hopelessly inadequate.
Speaker:Anyway, Hertz, took a, PhD from the University of Berlin and he
Speaker:then did various experiments, but the ones for which he is.
Speaker:Particularly remembered his, he was the first to prove conclusively the
Speaker:existence of electromagnetic waves, which could travel through space.
Speaker:And he did that in 1886.
Speaker:when he showed that he could produce and receive radio waves in the very high
Speaker:frequency range, and he also established that, both lights and radio waves were
Speaker:both forms of electromagnetic radiation.
Speaker:Extraordinarily, hurts when he made the announcement of his results, was
Speaker:asked what he thought the effect or usefulness, of his discovery would be.
Speaker:And he expressed the amazingly wrong prediction that he didn't
Speaker:think it'd be any use whatsoever.
Speaker:Uh, What an extraordinary statement and really a very humble
Speaker:statement from a person who was clearly, a very great scientist.
Speaker:And it reminds me of, I think it was the, the man who in the Remington man,
Speaker:the man who invented the electric razor.
Speaker:some years later he was shown, what in fact was Velcro, you know, the, where
Speaker:it sticks together, he was shown this and asked if he'd like to support the
Speaker:development of this particular product.
Speaker:And he's reputed to have sort of looked at it and pulled it apart and put it together
Speaker:and pulled it apart and handed it back and said, I can't see any use for this at all.
Speaker:So once again, both, Dr. Hertz and, the Remington man got it awfully wrong.
Speaker:So Hertz, lives on because Hertz, which is the, the unit of frequency is still used.
Speaker:And, uh, indeed the waves, which he theoretically showed could travel through
Speaker:space were in fact called hertzian waves.
Speaker:Up until about 1,910 when the term was changed to radio waves.
Speaker:Hertz did various other, uh, experiments over the years.
Speaker:he in fact was an earlier experimenter in, x-rays.
Speaker:So quite an extraordinary character.
Speaker:now in terms where it fits in, The message was received in
Speaker:Australia in September, 1918.
Speaker:as I mentioned just a moment ago, in 1920, Marconi commenced the first
Speaker:commercial radio service between, the United Kingdom and New York.
Speaker:And just putting it in context again, it wasn't until 1922.
Speaker:In fact, December, 1922, the BBC made its first radio broadcast Australia's
Speaker:receipt of this message was really at the vanguard of exploring the potential,
Speaker:and development of radio waves.
Speaker:And of course for Australia, it was just enormous.
Speaker:Not only to.
Speaker:improve our links to the outside world, but even within Australia, to provide
Speaker:links for the vast distances that we have.
Speaker:And one thinks back, of course, to John Flynn and the Pedal Wireless.
Speaker:All of that flowed on from this discovery and application of, radio waves.
Speaker:And it was in on the fourth of 19.
Speaker:I think it had a different name, but it ultimately became, two ffc when the
Speaker:Australian Broadcasting Corporation was set up in the early 1930s.
Speaker:uh, this really was, uh, in the vanguard of the development of radio.
Speaker:So What about Fisk?
Speaker:Just a little about him.
Speaker:someone described it, but I think it's right.
Speaker:that he was fortunate in his time, the time he lived, because he had
Speaker:the capacities to fit into this huge leap in, technological knowledge.
Speaker:And of course, as we get told repeatedly, we're going through it again.
Speaker:Uh, earnestly wish we had men of, Fisk's character quality who were, leading the
Speaker:charge, unlike, those we seem to have.
Speaker:But he was called a writer of a revolution, which I think is a
Speaker:wonderful way of, summing him up.
Speaker:So there was luck.
Speaker:And of course, we all know life is largely luck.
Speaker:but to fiscal credit, he seized his chance, with both hands.
Speaker:he finished normal school and his, his actual training, was, in 1,906.
Speaker:He then would've been about 20.
Speaker:He did a five week course in Liverpool in England, which was one of the great.
Speaker:Transatlantic ports, of course, at the Marconi Wallace School.
Speaker:And believe it or not, in those days, that qualified you to
Speaker:be a radio operator on ships.
Speaker:And it was through that chance, linked to Marconi that he formed, the
Speaker:friendship that, he and Marconi had.
Speaker:And I, in the course of researching this, I came upon this wonderful,
Speaker:Menu for a dinner, which Marconi hosted for him in London, in 1923.
Speaker:And I imagine it must have been quite a dinner.
Speaker:but clearly he was held in very high esteem by Marconi.
Speaker:Now, Fisk was born in Britain, brought in London.
Speaker:he started off selling newspapers at Sunbury Station
Speaker:and then when finishing the
Speaker:basic education he had, he joined the British Post Office and he was
Speaker:one of the very early wireless ISTs.
Speaker:And it was probably then when he was there that he went off and
Speaker:did that course in Liverpool.
Speaker:by 1,909, he was working for the American branch, of Marconi.
Speaker:and what he was doing is he was sent to, basically, it was probably Canada, more
Speaker:than the US of, demonstrating the benefit to, of wireless, to ceiling fleets.
Speaker:Seals fleets searching for seals that is, in Newfoundland
Speaker:and on the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Speaker:He then returned to London in 1,910.
Speaker:He was sent by Marconi to Australia, which is to our great benefit
Speaker:to demonstrate wireless to the orient steam navigation company.
Speaker:And at that time, the focus of the commercial use of wireless, was very much
Speaker:on shipping as, which of course as you get mansion, would be an enormous boom.
Speaker:And one only has to think of the Titanic to realize, what
Speaker:a huge difference it's made.
Speaker:he then went back to Britain, but in 1,911 he came back on a permanent basis,
Speaker:with Marconi and was, called the resident engineer, for Marconi in Australia.
Speaker:again, concentrating on ships.
Speaker:Now, Marconi, the Marconi business and the Commonwealth government had quite a
Speaker:few, disagreements about various things.
Speaker:And Morris, he wasn't Prime minister then, but he was very,
Speaker:very keen on developing wireless.
Speaker:He could see the great potential.
Speaker:And anyway, there are a lot of disputes, but they.
Speaker:Finally settle 'em by setting up a company, which was to become
Speaker:the very great Amalgamated Wireless Australia, a WA.
Speaker:And that was formed in 1913.
Speaker:Fisk moved to work there.
Speaker:By 1916, he was the managing director, and in the same year, in December of
Speaker:that year, he married his wife Florence.
Speaker:and, uh, I just mentioned in passing by 1932, he was chairman
Speaker:of a w the government was very keen to push ahead with radio.
Speaker:So in 1922, the Commonwealth of Australia became the major shareholder in a WA.
Speaker:so Ernest Fisk, was knighted in 1937 for his great service to the nation.
Speaker:Now as I mentioned, Fisk was a man who had luck, but he had application.
Speaker:He could see the luck he'd been given, and he got on with it.
Speaker:And he also had great foresight because he foresaw and used to speak about that
Speaker:wireless could sometimes in the future, light lamps, cook, roasts, and drive cars.
Speaker:Now what a wonderful prediction.
Speaker:We still haven't got, self-driving cars now except on a limited basis, and I
Speaker:personally have no desire to see them.
Speaker:I think there's a silly idea.
Speaker:but he was clearly years ahead of his time in thinking of these things.
Speaker:he also, had a spiritual side to him.
Speaker:Sadly, one of his sons was killed in World War ii and that
Speaker:had a profound effect on him.
Speaker:And he became very interested in a movement, which was testing the
Speaker:theory of whether through wireless you could communicate with the.
Speaker:It isn't as, um, silly as it seems because, the technology that could send.
Speaker:Initially, a Morse code later, a voice through the air seemed so magical at the
Speaker:time that assuming that perhaps in some way you could speak with the dead doesn't
Speaker:seem as strange perhaps as we might seem, and there was a chap called Jeffrey Sconce
Speaker:who, formed the Haunted Media Society for Psychic Research, and the theory was now
Speaker:in as EVP electronic voice, phenomena.
Speaker:In any event, that's something he continued with an interest for his life.
Speaker:Um, a WA, uh, built wireless house.
Speaker:It's still in York Street in Sydney.
Speaker:It's still got the wonderful wireless tower on top of it.
Speaker:Beautiful facing on the building.
Speaker:I should do a podcast on that sometime.
Speaker:That was opened in 1939 and Fisk designed all the soundproof
Speaker:windows for the building.
Speaker:And when it was built, it was the tallest building in Sydney.
Speaker:And I must confess that I'm sufficiently old that when I went on school excursion
Speaker:many years ago, soon after the building of War Gamba Dam, they, showed you the height
Speaker:of the dam relative to the IWA tower.
Speaker:a WA grew to be a very large company.
Speaker:By 1944, it had 6,000 employees, and, uh, Fisk was still involved, but by
Speaker:that time he had a great interest in solar, hydro, and nuclear power.
Speaker:And here we are.
Speaker:80 years later, still trying to work out how to get the mix right.
Speaker:and he was a bloke who was talking about it back then.
Speaker:If only we'd got on with the job a lot earlier, we'd be
Speaker:in a vastly, better position.
Speaker:He had the lighter side to mean he was very fit bloke.
Speaker:He liked exercise, but his motto that he'd adopted in Latin men's somar
Speaker:capano, which means fit, but not stupid.
Speaker:So he didn't overdo it.
Speaker:He had two, uh, wonderful qualities that I, Uh, admire.
Speaker:he drank champagne for lunch, which apparently was also
Speaker:the habit of the late queen.
Speaker:and he loved gardening.
Speaker:And the a WA works in Asheville, which I recall, they used to be on
Speaker:Parramatta Road just near where.
Speaker:great North Road, great meets.
Speaker:It was a wonderful, huge works and it was known as an Australian factory in
Speaker:an Australian garden, which I think was largely due to, fisk's influence.
Speaker:And, he died at Roseville, on the 8th of July, 1965.
Speaker:And, an amazing career and a very admirable person.
Speaker:And the sad prospect, is, the sad Postscript brother.
Speaker:I'm sorry, is that in 1997, a WA went broke because by that stage
Speaker:for some godforsaken reason, they were dealing in foreign currencies.
Speaker:They had a rogue trader who managed to lose them 48, 40 $9
Speaker:million, and, sent them broke.
Speaker:he ended up going to jail.
Speaker:But that was no good for a WA, and once very glad that Paul Fisk didn't
Speaker:leave to see that dreadfully end.
Speaker:So there, that's it.
Speaker:I've probably got on long enough, some wonderful characters, and some wonderful
Speaker:history, of Australia, which helped us well on the way to our development.
Speaker:So that's it for me for now.
Speaker:Stay well, stay happy.
Speaker:Keep rambling, and until next time, Cheerio.
