Marconi prominent in Chelmsford Museum extension
Last year’s newsletter reported the plans for an extension to Chelmsford Museum in Oaklands Park. The formal opening of the new extension by Sir Andrew Motion, last years Poet Laureate, took place on 22nd January and featured all the Chelmsford industries – Marconi, Hoffmann, Cromptons and Christy Bros – in the new Bright Sparks gallery. To the fore is an excellent display of Marconi cameras, transmitters and other items of equipment which cover the manufacture in Chelmsford over the last hundred years. In addition there are voice recordings on the opening of the Chelmsford and London Wireless Stations which were to be the founding stones of the British Broad-casting Company (later the British Broadcasting Corporation), and recordings of the first broadcasters, as well as other well known Marconi personnel. The displays include items from the museum at Sandford Mill, and a few artefacts loaned from the Marconi collection at the Museum of History of Science in Oxford.
Museum hours: Mondays – Saturdays – 10am to 5pm, Sundays 1pm – 4pm: tel: 01245 605700: www.chelmsford.goc.uk/museums
International Marconi Day at Sandford Mill, Chelmsford, Saturday 24th April 2010, entrance free, 10am to 5pm
This annual event commemorates Marconi’s birthday. It’s the chance to visit Marconi collections including the ship’s radio room and the exhibition in the Marconi Writtle broadcasting hut, from where the first broadcasts were made in 1922. The Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society members operate a number of stations at the site throughout the day, the contacts worked by them being of particular interest to the youngsters, who are much in evidence.