Last week we shared with you a snapshot of the old radio station in Dorchester. This week, we wanted to take a further look at this station through the scope of two recently digitised photograph albums…
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In the latter half of 2024 we had the pleasure of digitising two very large photographic albums that included an extensive range photographs made mostly during the 1940’s of the old Beam Wireless Radio Station, which was situated along the Dorchester/Bridport Road where the current coach station is – also formerly the site of Friary Press. The albums belong to a relative of the former Radio Station Manager Crispin Redshaw, who was not only an engineer but also a skilled and prolific photographer; his great enthusiasm for both photography and his place of work has resulted in an extensive collection of both informative, documentary and artistic photographs, and should appeal to both historians and photographers as well as general local interest – you may know some of the characters shown – do you have any stories to tell of relatives who worked there perhaps?
The collection consists of interior and exterior photographs, portraits of employees at work, the equipment, an incredible image from below the camouflage netting that covered the station during the war (figure 5) as well as the exterior view (figures 3& 4).
Many photographs are annotated with the details of both the radio station and the photographic equipment and processes used; Redshaw was experimental in his approach to photographic chemistry and utilised a range of processes such as photogravure, infrared, along with contrast filters, experimenting with different films, printing papers & chemistry, and toning, for example here in figures 6 & 7.
The radio station was built in 1925-1926 by Italian Guglielmo Marconi, (whose first experiments in wireless technology began at the Haven Hotel in Bournemouth) and ceased operation in 1979. Mr W Vickers began construction of the station, and then joined the radio station as staff where he remained until his retirement. According to a newspaper article printed in the Dorset County Chronicle on 13 September 1956 (D-3369/3/1) the station employed approximately 100 men, and after a couple of name changes was merged with the G.P.O in 1950. It also trained local youngsters who had gained their GCE in Maths and Physics, to Technician Grade, reserving their employment for their return from National Service.
The station provided a global communications transmission service, and was controlled from London’s Victoria Embankment :
“the traffic is channelled to the station over landlines and then it is automatically transferred from landline to radio…..deal[ing] with all government and commercial traffic including private messages and news pictures”.
The article, entitled ‘Dorchester Radio Station Photo Pioneer’ continues to discuss how the station was one of the first to experiment with a new system of transmitting photographs to enable them to appear the next day in a newspaper:
“at one end the negative is transmitted as two frequencies, black and white, and between the two are the semi-tones. On its swift journey the photo takes the form of a changing note. The receiving equipment decides whether each note is black or white, and the result is another negative”.
One wonders whether Crispin Redshaw’s interest in photography was instrumental in the stations involvement in this new system?
The station’s first transmission service was to New York, rising to 25 transmitters by 1956. Its closure was a result of the re-equipping of the Ongar station at Rugby and main services eventually transferring there, as new developing technologies started to make an ever-increasing presence.
The albums contain 231 images specifically relating to the radio station, with the remaining 328 images showing local and national landscapes, family portraits, photographic equipment tests, insights in Dorset life in the 1940’s and photographs of other radio stations, this is a collection to be explored! If you know any of the characters or have any stories to tell, we would love to hear from you!
The trouble with tryng to find the history of former commercial undertakings is that at the time the personnel did not think about future generations, and their interest in what was , to them, a rather mundane job.
By patient research I have discovered the outine life of my grandfather, William Dixon who was one of the ‘founding members’ of the Dorchester Radio Station, and also at Ongar – one of the original radio transmitting stations – in the years before 1927.
Unfortunately William Dixon died before I was born, and his children spoke little of him. But I have pieced together the outlines of his life before his death from peritonitis aged 52, in 1932
William has been ‘trained’ in the newly invented wireless telegraphy ‘trade,’ by joining the Royal Navy as an ‘electrician 4th Class’ in 1902. He stayed with the Navy until he ‘retired’ from service in 1922 with the rank of Chief Petty Officer – Telegraphy.
He immediately joined the Marconi Company at North Weald, Ongar where the brand new telegraphy station was just being built. He, and his family lived on site in a, (the?), company bungalow for the next 5 years, What his duties were I have failed to discover, but someone with his experience and the mere fact that he lived ‘looking after the Company interests’ on site, tends me to think that he was one of those people who had a high degree of knowledge of telegraphy. Don’t forget that radio transmission in 1925 was similar to working at advance computer technology today.
In 1925 he and his family moved to the Dorchester radio sation, which similarly had just been built and similarly the whole family moved into a company bungalow on site, where they remained until his death 7 years later.
William’s salary was about £350 per annum, I have found from Company records, which would have been twice the amount that skilled tradesman would have earned. This could be a clue as to position/duties at Dorchester.
Being ‘away from home’ in the Royal Navy , William was a ‘solitary’man. When he came backto ‘civilian life’ he always ate his meals away from his five children. They, in turn, never ‘spoke of him’ to their own children, so his life with Marconi is extremely hazy.
One interesting fact is that his wife was always ‘sore with Marconi’, because William, her husband was said to have invented a marked improvement to the amplifying sytsem of radio sets, (in the days when the receiving of broadcast transmissions necessitated the use of headphones , rather than loudspeakers). His work was never ‘recognised’ and Marconi went off and patented the invention himself. There’s always an element of truth about these ‘family legends’.
HIs appendicitis suddenly happened one day in 1932 and he died in Dorchester Hospital. His family then had to ‘leave the site bungalow’, and continue their lives.