The stunning Essex village home to a teeny hut in a soggy field where the first ever radio station was born
At exactly 7.15pm on February 14, 1922, Essex made history in a tiny hut in a soggy field. In that moment, the faint crackling of a voice was broadcast across the airwaves from inside an old ex-army hut on the edge of a field in the village of Writtle, Chelmsford. It was the birth of the first ever regular radio station, named 2MT, standing for Two-Emma-Toc, the phonetic alphabet of its time - cementing Essex in history as the official birthplace of British radio broadcasting.
While this is true, the roots of radio development began way before - in a fast-paced, experimental and dynamic swirl of people and innovation. Perhaps most crucially, one of the leading figures was Guglielmo Marconi, who arrived in Britain in his 20s in 1896.
Historian Tim Wander, from the Isle of Wight, has dedicated most of his life to understanding, discovering and exploring the history of radio, including the pivotal role of Marconi and the birthplace of radio in Chelmsford. He called Marconi the "first entrepreneur before the word had even been invented" - paving the way for electric radar, broadcast radio, TV and the first computers in his lifetime.
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"When Marconi arrived, Victoria was still Queen and Marconi was not yet 21," Mr Wander said. "He had been experimenting with radio since he was 16 at home in Bologna. "He had no serious education, no reputation and had been self-taught and spoke five languages. He had failed his entrance exams to University and the Italian Navy."
Luckily, Marconi's father was a wealthy Italian Count and introduced his son to the right people, giving him access to resources with the British Post Office - who at the time held a monopoly over all communications, post, mail and telephone. In the following years, Marconi used his "pure genius", Mr Wander said, pulling together all the best people within radio innovation, like he was trying to solve a puzzle.
"He was a genius and a young entrepreneur," Mr Wander said. "Few people in history have made such a massive change to the way we all live in such a short time." In 1897, he set up The Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company in 1897 with the first patent for a radio-wave based communication system.
One year later, Marconi opened the world's first ever radio factory in Chelmsford - with the company renamed one year later as Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company. The first receivers were actually known as 'crystal sets' - which still work today - using a crystal detector and a fine 'cat's whisker' iron wire which when touching the crystal allows a user to tune into a frequency.
Marconi's development of the first radio systems has helped save millions of lives. It was central to the rescue of 700 survivors from the Titanic disaster in April 1912 - as well as thousands of other lives that could have been lost at sea in the decades since.
When the Titanic set off for its maiden voyage, it was equipped with all the Marconi installation allowing the ship to transmit messages via Morse Code. When the titanic collided with the iceberg on that fateful night, an operator on a nearby Cunard liner, Carpathia, was able to receive the first distress signal from the Titanic.
It turned and steamed towards the Titanic. When they arrived four hours later, they found distressed passengers bobbing in lifeboats and many others dead in the icy water. While more than 1,500 of the 2,224 passengers and crew died aboard the Titanic, they were able to rescue 700 people - which would never have happened without the wireless telegraph.
"The time was simply right for radio broadcasting to occur"
A few years later, during the First World War, the wireless technology created by Marconi's team became increasingly more important. By 1918, Mr Wander said there was "robust, reliable and portable equipment" which allowed ground-to-air and even air-to-air communication.
"It was then that a group of young engineers, born into the Victorian age, fresh from Military service during the war and working for the very formal and huge company that Marconi had built, took their stride into history," Tim Wander said. "As the new decade dawned, the time was simply right for radio broadcasting to occur."
The first broadcasts in Britain were actually complete accidents, Mr Wander explained, by two Marconi engineers, H.J. Round and W.T. Ditcham. The pair began a series of experimental 'transmitter test' broadcasts in Ireland before running them in Chelmsford.
The tests began with a rather dry recital of "British railway stations" before expanding to gramophone music or Ditchim's "news service". Most famously, Dame Nellie Melba, one of the most famous singers in the world, was broadcast from the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company's factory on New Street in Chelmsford.
At a fee of £1,000 paid by the Daily Mail, the Dame's voice was broadcast across Europe on June 15, 1920 for 30 historic minutes. During a tour of the factory before her performance, Dame Nellie was shown the huge antenna masts where she was told her voice would be "carried far and wide".
It is thought, Mr Wander said, that she explained "'Young man, if you think I am going to climb up there you are greatly mistaken.’" Despite the experimental broadcast's success, on November 23, 1920 the Postmaster General announced they would end on the grounds of ‘interference with legitimate services’ and for the time being no more trials would be permitted.
It was another two years before the first official radio station - 2MT - would be born in that soggy field in Writtle - exactly 99 years ago. At the heart of 2MT was Peter Eckersley, a "raconteur" in Tim Wander's eyes, who brought to life the real sparkle of radio we recognise today.
"He was the most amazing buffoon and a superb engineer," he said. "He did the first radio quiz, first lonely hearts club, first comedy skits and brought in outside singers to sing for them." Eckersley would humour listeners over the static noise, creating "dreary weather forecasts", impromptu comedy sketches and even the first ever broadcast radio play.
The games and rituals we hear on the radio today all began from Eckersley in the humble hut with guest artists, parodies, sound effects from banging half-filled milk bottles. 2MT was so successful that over 50 stations applied to join the then-unregulated airwaves - including paving the way for the BBC.
The government decided to create The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) with its first station as 2LO from Marconi House in December 30, 1922. For a month, families enjoyed 2MT and 2LO together before 2MT eventually ended in January.
In the entire history of radio, Mr Wander said the role of Marconi and Chelmsford itself was "absolutely pivotal." He still believes we have only scratched the surface of its history, something he continues to explore today.
"It's a fantastic piece of our history," he said. "It's where we came from and in some sense, it's where we are going. "It is almost our duty to make sure that we celebrate, record and remember the history of radio here."