By Hugh S. Pocock, F.I.E.E.

Editor of The Wireless World from 1920 to 1941, then managing editor, and successively director, managing director and chairman of the publishing company until his retirement in 1962.

Published in Wireless World April 1971.

Reprinted with permission of the editor of Wireless World in its new guise, Electronics World - a Cumulus Business Media publication

When the Marconigraph was published by the Marconi Company in 1911 the intention was to provide a means of giving wider publicity to the Marconi System than had been possible through Guglieimo Marconi's lectures to scientific bodies and references in the Press. The circulation, however, was mainly amongst Marconi engineers and marine operators with a small readership amongst those interested in the Marconi Company as an investment or speculation. After two years of publication it was decided to broaden the scope of the journal and put it on sale on bookstalls, with the new name of The Wireless World, the idea being to remove the impression that it was merely a Marconi publicity publication. Under the new title it was to continue to favor the Marconi System but to be broader in its attitude towards other activities outside the company. In making preparations for the launching of the first issue of The Wireless World the Marconi Company put out an advertisement for an editorial assistant preferably with some knowledge of wireless. This advertisement caught the eye of one who was to be closely identified with the journal's fortunes for the next fifty years. His qualifications were a fluent pen (at that time), the holder of an Experimental Wireless license, and that he had absorbed almost everything published on the subject at that date, although he admitted to dodging the mathematical analysis of the spark in Fleming's "Wireless Telegraphy". Being accepted for the job he found himself installed in Marconi House in the Strand, London. The site for the present Bush House, alongside, had just been cleared for building. Preparation for the first The Wireless World was being made, but that was not a full-time occupation for the new recruit so to him was assigned, as an extra duty, the editorship of the new publication "The Year Book of Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony". The Postmaster General had granted a good many Experimental Wireless licenses by this time and Gamages produced a directory of them and ran a department to supply experimenters with the gear they required. The Wireless Society of London (which became the Radio Society of Great Britain) was a focal point and the then editor was keenly supported in the idea of fostering amateur interests. The Wireless World became the official organ of the society and published, in full, its lectures and discussions. With the outbreak of the First World War there was strict censorship, experimental licenses were withdrawn, and our publishing activities greatly circumscribed. We were, no doubt, the first wireless journal to have to submit material to censorship and we well remember taking our 'copy' to Whitehall, where the chief censor, F. E. Smith (later Lord Birkenhead), dealt with it personally. A commission in the Royal Engineers with wireless and intelligence duties at home and then overseas meant a break in association with the journal until late in 1920, when the invitation, sent to Baghdad, to return to occupy the editorial chair of The Wireless World was a rewarding prospect. When the present Editor recently did me the honor to invite me to make some contribution to the 60th anniversary number he said he had in mind that (for a very short time, I presume!) I should be back in the editorial chair and contribute a guest editorial.

As that is the nature of the invitation it gives me every excuse to adopt the editorial 'we' as we proceed and we propose to confine ourselves mainly to touching on certain events and outside influences which have affected the journal's career. With the lifting of censorship after the First World War a wealth of material became available for publication. The general availability of the valve provided great scope for inventors and experimenters. Naturally, with such a promising field, W.W. did not long remain without competitors and a number of new journals appeared. The journal was taunted with its Marconi bias and consequent neglect of rival systems. The Postmaster General did not re-issue experimental licenses despite the clamoring of the wireless societies and amateurs. Eventually the wireless societies decided to seek legal advice to obtain what clearly appeared to be their rights under the Wireless Telegraphy Act. Then something occurred which was to prove of great importance to our future. A press friend telephoned us one evening and told that a rival radio publisher had put out a news item to the press that £500 was being offered to the Wireless Society of London to assist in its legal showdown with the Post Office. A prompt telephone to the home of the manager of Marconi publications procured the authority to make a similar offer if we felt it necessary in the interests of the journal. So, the next morning our offer and that of the rival publication both appeared in the press. Nothing very interesting about that, one might say, but it had its repercussions! That morning we received a summons from the managing director of Marconi's, (F. G. Kelloway, a former Postmaster General) to attend his office with the publisher. The Post Office had apparently taken the line with the Marconi Company that it could not continue the present negotiations for wireless station contracts while the company's publication supported an attack on the Post Office monopoly. The outcome of that stormy interview was the decision to find a buyer for the offending Wireless World. This is how the journal came into the fold of Iliffe & Sons, Ltd in 1924. Though respecting our former proprietors, we welcomed the change wholeheartedly because it gave us editorial independence and we could no longer be charged with bias, while we had the very important advantage that we now had the resources of a top publishing house ready with financial support and experience of publishing. One of the first moves was to change the format to suit rotary presses for much increased printing order. The competition from other journals in the field remained intense but we were able to hold our own and establish a reputation for sound designs for constructional articles and all round technical reliability. We remember the occasion when the first issue under our new proprietors was on the machines we spotted a letter from a reader which expressed his disapproval of stunt circuits, but this appeared as STunt circuits. At that time our rival publishers gave a serial number to the constructional designs which they published and prefixed the number with ST, being the initials of the designer. With alacrity the printing machine was stopped and the offending capital letters reduced to lower case. The most active competition in the field eventually closed down and those journals of the rival group, which continued, did so under other publishers. It is interesting to recall that we later received from the former proprietor of the Radio Press (John Scott-Taggart) a generous tribute to The Wireless World. (We hope he reads this in his Beaconsfield retreat!)

Hardly had the competition of the Radio Press faded out when we were confronted with another problem. The B.B.C., which had launched Radio Times, now produced a new journal World Radio. Profiting from the monopoly of their own programmes, they were able to obtain, by exchange, advance details of a wide selection of foreign programmes for publication in World Radio. This at a time when there was very great interest in receiving the foreign transmissions and designers of receivers here competed to achieve a degree of selectivity which made it possible to sort out the individual programmes. Next, World Radio added to its contents technical articles and constructional designs, carried a sub-title 'The Technical Journal of the B.B.C.', and competed with us for contributors. In addition to protesting, which seemed to have little effect, we felt we had to take steps to safeguard our position especially when the B.B.C's use of the microphone to publicize its journals was taken into account. That is why Wireless World began the very expensive policy of breaking the monopoly by publishing foreign programmes, as well. Both journals became unprofitable and eventually World Radio discontinued publication of technical articles of the type we objected to and we agreed in return to discontinue foreign programmes. In a general agreement between the B.B.C. and the Press the B.B.C. undertook to confine its future publishing activities to what was 'pertinent to the service of broadcasting'. World Radio was closed down at a later date and in any case could hardly have continued to obtain advance foreign programmes as the cloud of war in Europe darkened. As events seemed to be moving towards war we felt that there could soon be an urgent need for people skilled in the very field for which our journal catered. We believed our readership would be the ideal medium through which to recruit for such services. So we launched a ‘'Wireless World Register', inviting our readers, who would be ready to give their services in an emergency, to complete a form giving such particulars as we thought would be most useful. Having got the approval of the Services we published the form in the journal with the address side carrying O.H.M.S. (on the recommendation of the Admiralty). We believe that such permission had never been given previously to any technical journal nor has it been granted since, as far as we are aware. There was a rewarding response from our readers and the completed forms went to the Wireless Telegraphy Board as a convenient clearinghouse. Perhaps this resulted in our getting less credit for our enterprise than would otherwise have been the case. The register proved very valuable especially in meeting the need for radar personnel. The imminence of war made things very difficult for us. It is well known that technical journals depend very largely on their advertising pages for a healthy existence. Manufacturers were now so overwhelmed with orders for war needs that they saw no purpose in advertising and we suffered badly. So unpromising was the position that a boardroom decision was made that we should close down. That might well have been the sad end of Wireless World but fortunately our board of directors was not composed of Medes and Persians and they were prepared to reverse a decision. We produced facts and figures to show how Wireless World could be expected to continue, even profitably, by changing from weekly to monthly publication with a corresponding reduction in paper and printing costs and a reduced staff which was already inevitable with departures of a number to the Services. Actually, with the change to monthly publication, we never looked back.

From this point onwards in our history the editorial 'we' should be taken to include successive editors, the late H. F. Smith, and also F. L. Devereux, two names which will always be associated with the very best that we have been able to put before our readers issue by issue through the years. We are proud to have been followed by men of such outstanding qualities. Throughout its history Wireless World has enjoyed the co-operation of a loyal and efficient editorial team and the journal's success must, of course, be credited to them and to our many outstanding contributors, both staff and outside, who have devoted their energies to the needs of our readership. Our present editor, H. W. Barnard, carries on the tradition with that dedication and competence which can be expected from one who has devoted the whole of his working life to Wireless World. It would seem appropriate here to make reference to the transfer of Iliffe's to new proprietors. A good many years ago Iliffe's, being a private company, was attached, for convenience, to a public company (the Amalgamated Press) then controlled by Lord Iliffe with his partners. Some time later Amalgamated Press was sold to I.P.C., the Daily Mirror Group, and we believe the new proprietors only later discovered how important an acquisition had come their way with the Iliffe journals. There was much reorganization and change, but Wireless World together with other electrical and electronic publications was gathered as one unit which still continues as a distinct entity constituted much as it was when we vacated the chairmanship of the unit to rest from our lab ours some eight years ago. In "The Torrington Diaries"* which record the travels through England of John Byng (later Viscount Torrington) the author states, in his introduction, "If my Journals should remain legible, or be perused at the end of 200 years, there will, even then, be little curious in them relative to travel, or the people: Because our Island is now so explored: Our roads, in general, are so fine; and our speed has reached the summit". This he wrote during a tour in Lincolnshire in June 1791. But we can have sympathy with John Byng for how could we, at the time the Wireless World was launched, foresee the future through successive stages of the invention of the valve, with all its applications, short wave communication, radio telephony, broadcasting, radar, television, the transistor and the employment of electronic devices in almost every human activity. And we do not think anyone today would venture to suggest that we have "reached the summit"!

 * The Torrington Diaries (Eyre & Spottiswoode)

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