Guglielmo Marconi (Wireless communication pioneer)

Location

Benefits HQ, Marconi building, New Street (erected 1987)

About

Guglielmo Marconi was born in 1874 in Italy to an Italian father and Irish mother. He is often thought of as the father of wireless, for his pioneering work in the development of wireless communication.

While Marconi did not invent the technology, he had the vision to see its applications and quickly sought to exploit it. He set up the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company in 1897 and a year later, the company opened the world's first wireless factory at Chelmsford.

He is credited with transmitting the first international wireless message across the Channel and was the first person to bridge the Atlantic by wireless. In 1909, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun, "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy".