Lot 171
Marconi, Guglielmo -- 1922 TLS Re Damage to Irish Wireless Station by the IRA (1874-1937) Italian physicist and inventor who developed, demonstrated and marketed the first successful long-distance wireless telegraph and in 1901 broadcast the first transatlantic radio signal. In 1909 he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics. Typed letter signed "G Marconi," one page, on Marconi House letterhead, 10 x 8", London, Sept., 4, 1922. To Richard J. Kelly in Dublin, thanking him for "all the kind interest which you have expressed in your own name and on behalf of others of Galway in the danger in which the Clifden Wireless Station of the Marconi Company was recently placed. I am glad to inform you that the Company hopes to have the Clifen [sic] Station, on which I have spent so much time, in good working order again soon." Fine condition. Accompanied by a 1925 letter to Mr. Kelly by Marconi's private secretary enclosing newspaper cuttings (not present) "with reference to the destroyment of the Marconi Wireless Station at Clifden by the Sinn Feiners and the consequent loss to Ireland who is now reduced to communicate to America through England."
The station at Clifden (County Galway) opened officially in 1907 with signalling between Clifden and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. The station was attacked in 1922 by Irish revolutionaries and some buildings were seized and damaged. Marconi was refused compensation by the new Irish Free State government and the station closed shortly thereafter. Estimate $900 - 1,200
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| Realized $844 |
