“CAN YOU HEAR ME”, “YES LOUD AND CLEAR”.

This was the first communication exchange sent by electromagnetic transmission across open sea made over 127 years ago between Guglielmo Marconi and his assistant. To mark its global technological significance and its place within the history of the area, a new sculpture has been unveiled in Cardiff Bay.

The sculpture was designed by Glenn Davidson and is part of a collection of new art produced by the National Lottery Heritage Fund Project, “Flat Holm – A Walk Through Time”. The hardwood sculpture which takes the form of a radio transmitter tower warping into an old-fashioned analogue radio set, is 12ft tall and is situated on the Cardiff Bay Barrage.

But who was Guglielmo Marconi and what was he doing in South Wales at the end of the Victorian era?

Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi was born on 25 April 1874 in Bologna, Italy into an aristocratic family. Marconi was half-Irish and spent some of his childhood living in Bedford, England. Although not formally educated, Marconi received a private education and had an interest in science and electricity. In the early 1890s, he began working on experiments with wireless telegraphy.

In 1896, following a distinct lack of interest from authorities in his Italian homeland, Marconi moved to the UK. The 21-year-old got support from the British Post Office whose Engineer-in-Chief William Preece had also experimented with radio telegraphy.

In the following year, he successfully transmitted messages between government buildings in London and across Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, he then set his sights on transmitting messages across the open sea.

With the assistance of George Kemp (a Cardiff-based Post Office engineer) and his nephew Herbert, he headed towards South Glamorgan. Marconi took up position in a field on Lavernock Point in Penarth, while Kemp went to Flat Holm which is a small island, four miles away in the Bristol channel. Both locations had a 100ft mast erected, each with an aerial at the top.

Kemp’s detailed diary entries provide an invaluable insight on the experiments. He wrote:

After the initial success, the Flat Holm equipment was moved an extra six miles away across the Bristol Channel, to Brean Down Fort near Weston Super Mare and the experiment was successfully repeated.

After proving the viability of the technology, Marconi patented his invention and started the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company with George Kemp as his Head of Engineering Development.

Four years later, in 1901 Marconi established the first radio link across the Atlantic Ocean, thus the world of global wireless communications was born.

The company gained greater legitimacy when the Royal Navy began using the equipment to enable communications between warships and on-land military facilities.

The Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company subsequently became responsible for the invention of:

• The diodevacuum tube 
• High frequency tuned broadcasting
• Formation of the British Broadcasting Company (later to become the BBC)
• Short wavebeam broadcasting
• Radar
• Avionics

In 1909, Marconi shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with fellow pioneer Karl Ferdinand Braun, in recognition of their “contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.”

His company later rebranded itself as Marconi and existed independently until 1999. Subsequent sales and mergers now see its lines of business as functions within BAE Systems, Ericsson and Telent.