Crystal Palace Television Studios

At Crystal Palace Baird's company had three sizable studios, comprehensively equipped and acoustically isolated. The largest measured 60 ft. by 40 ft. and could accommodate full scale productions involving up to forty actors. A smaller studio employing a flying-spot disc scanner dealt with close-ups of single performers or announcers. Other facilities included telecine equipment, dressing rooms, generating plant, workshops, offices, sound and vision radio transmitters and laboratories. From the beginning of 1934 until mid-1935 the system operated 180 lines, considered at the time to be high definition (pre-war British Standard BS205 stated that this description applied to definition in excess of 100 lines).

Reaching the public. The Baird Company lost no time in getting the message across that they would soon be in a position to provide a public service. Demonstrations were given to the Prime Minister, BBC officials, the Post Office and press at Film House, Wardour Street, in March 1934. Every opportunity was taken of capturing the interest of the public. One ingenious example occurred at the fifth Annual General Meeting the same month when the shareholders were surprised at the absence of the chairman, Sir Harry Greer. He eventually appeared not in person but on a television screen and the Baird company report was delivered from a studio in the Crystal Palace. While he made his way back to the Wardour Street meeting place, the shareholders and the press enjoyed a variety show and excerpts from films.

To promote his case, Baird donated a television set to Downing Street 10. Thanking him for this "wonderful miracle" the Prime Minister wrote to him on April 5th, 1930: "Dear Mr Baird, I must thank you very warmly for this television instrument you have put into Downing Street. What a marvellous discovery you have made! ..." The letter was signed by James Ramsay MacDonald, who then held office.

From February until June 1935, over 42 programmes were transmitted from the studios to various demonstration locations in London. Well known theatrical personalities took part — Alma Taylor made frequent appearances, others included Vivian Foster, Leonard Henry and Claude Lampier with Bille Carlyle. True to the tradition established at Long Acre, the Baird staff had a supporting role providing boxing matches, sketches from the Cafe del Diablo set and carrying out announcing duties. Transmission from the Crystal Palace continued until the disastrous fire in November 1936.

Equipments. One of the outbuildings to survive was the Rotunda, the subject of an interesting article by Kenn Kiss in the magazine of the Crystal Palace Foundation. His research reveals that it opened on 3rd. June 1881. Extensive alterations in 1911 included a gallery and when the Baird Company leased the premises in 1936 this area accommodated several research units. In the main body of the building the biggest television picture tubes available anywhere were manufactured.

Television Advisory Committee set up in April 1934, means had to be found of providing programmes having good entertainment value which meant dealing with groups of performers on a large stage. The flying-spot scanner (camera) could only cope with a small area of about 4 ft. square when operating at a definition of 180 lines. At that time (early in 1934) electronic cameras were still in the development stage and EMI had not yet produced any pictures of live objects using their Emitron tube. The only practical solution appeared to be the intermediate film process. This employed a cine camera using 5 mm film (split 35 mm stock for reasons of economy), developing and fixing the pictures immediately, typically within 30-50 seconds, and then passing them still wet through a telecline scanner.

Between February and June 1935, over forty transmitters were made to various demonstration locations in London. In November the first of the dual standard sets, the T5, made its appearance at the Press Club for a special 240-line transmission which featured Leonard Henry. As the BBC had closed down the 30-line service in September and the opening of Alexandra Palace was still twelve months away, these were the only examples of live television to be seen in the country.

Baird's vision and sound transmitters were rather impressive. The vision transmitter operated at the high power of 10 kW on 42.8 MHz, quite a feat late in 1934. Designed and built at the Crystal Palace, unusual stapes had to be taken to avoid infringement of a Marconi patent on neutralising, a technique necessary with triode power amplifiers to prevent self oscillation. By using tetrode valves the need of this arrangement could be eliminated. It was decided to employ Metropolitan-Vickers constantly-pumped demountable tetrodes type 43, an entirely new departure for ultra short wave transmitters. MetroVick took a particular interest in this work and had one of their engineers on site for long periods during the trials. Two years later they obtained a contract from the Air Ministry for the supply of 19 radar transmitters to be used on the coastal chain and they bore a remarkable similarity to the Baird design. The sound occupied a separate channel on 35.3 MHz, using a 500 watt, amplitude-modulated transmitter. Both sound and vision aerials were attached to the top of the 275 ft. South Tower.

The fire and after. A most spectacular conflagration lit up the London skyline on the night of the 30th November 1936, when the Crystal Palace, together with the Baird complex, was burnt to the ground. Only the South Tower, the School of Arts and the Rontunda in the Palace Grounds survived. It represented a catastrophe for the company, only slightly eased by the insurance pay-out of 80,000 Pounds, about 1.8 million Pounds in today's money. Fortunately all the equipment purchased by the BBC for Alexandra Palace had been delivered six months earlier. The School of Arts had been producing the T5 mirror lid receiver during the past year and work on these continued. In the Rontunda 12, 15 and 22-inch diameter picture tubes were manufactured under the Cathovisor trade mark, in the gallery of this old building the vacuum physics department designed and produced split-anode magnetrons for the microwave-relay system, projection tubes capable of throwing a 13 ft. by 10 ft. television picture on a cinema screen and monoscopes (still picture tubes).

On 4 February 1938, a demonstration of colour television was introduced as a surprise item at the Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, London. At the evening performance 3,000 people watched pictures from the Crystal Palace on a 12 ft. by 9 ft. screen. Although fully reported in the national and technical press at te time, few people seem to be aware of this achievement which represented a triple first for John Logie Baird. It was the first time that colour television had been transmitted by radio link or demonstrated to the public in a theatre and never before had any outside scenes been televised in colour.