The first demonstration of television

O.G. Hutchinson became Baird's business manager. The association enabled Baird to concentrate on laboratory work and to devote all his energy and inventive skills to the furtherance of television development without being encumbered by the need to attend to business matters. Hutchinson's first task was to obtain some much needed extra financial assistance for Baird's endeavours. This he did by reorganising the nominal capital of Television Ltd., and persuading various persons and bodies to take up shares in the company. The chosen date for the first public demonstration of television was Tuesday, 26th January 1926. The Times report for 28th January was the only press statement obtained first-hand of this historic event. Baird's invention does not seem to have been a success. He hinted at the reason for this in his patent when he noted that the best results were obtained when the object and the screen were placed as close as possible to the ends of the bank of tubes-a very serious constraint-otherwise a 'slight blurring effect is obtained'. The patent is of some note, for it mentions the use of 'thin rods or tubes of glass quartz or other transparent material' in place of the metal tubes, and states that the rods 'need not necessarily be straight but could be bent or curved, or in the case of very fine quartz fibres, could be flexible'. Optic fibres are now extensively employed in communications engineering.