Sir Ernest Thomas Fisk (8 August 18868 July 1965) was an
English Australian
English Australians, also known as Anglo-Australians, are Australians whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England. In the 2021 census, 8,385,928 people, or 33% of the Australian population, stated that they had English ancestry (wheth ...
businessman and entrepreneur who was the founder (1913) and later managing director (1916) and chairman (1932) of
Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia)
AWA Technology Services, name based on former name Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd, is an Australian provider for technology related services. Throughout most of the 20th century AWA was Australia's largest and most prominent electronics o ...
(AWA). In 1944 was appointed managing director of the
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
music empire.
On 22 September 1918 he proved the possibility of direct radio communication from the UK to Australia by receiving the first such message at his Sydney home, "Lucania". A memorial was erected on 14 December 1935 to celebrate the achievement.
Throughout his career he held many key positions in the electronics industry. In the 1950s he predicted that color televisions would be in world-wide use within 30 years, and solar power would be used to cool and heat houses.
Fiskville,
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
, about 10 kilometres south of
Ballan, is named after him. From 1927 to 1969 it was the location of the
shortwave wireless transmitting complex operated by AWA as part of the
Imperial Wireless Chain
The Imperial Wireless Chain was a strategic international communications network of powerful long range radiotelegraphy stations, created by the British government to link the countries of the British Empire. The stations exchanged commercial a ...
.
Honours
Fisk was
knighted
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the Christian denomination, church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood ...
on 11 May 1937.
It's an Honour
Retrieved 15 July 2013
Gallery
File:Ernest Fisk house 01.jpg, Ernest Fisk's house "Lucania", Wahroonga, Sydney, Australia. Site of the first wireless message from Wales to Australia, 22 September 1918.
File:Monument celebrating first wireless broadcast between Wales and Australia 1918.jpg, The monument erected 14 December 1935.
File:Monument celebrating first wireless broadcast between Wales and Australia 1918 2.jpg, The monument.
File:Monument celebrating first wireless broadcast between Wales and Australia 1918 3.jpg, The monument with "Lucania" behind.
File:Monument celebrating first wireless broadcast between Wales and Australia 1918 4.jpg, Detail of inscription on the monument Part I.
File:Monument celebrating first wireless broadcast between Wales and Australia 1918 5.jpg, Detail of inscription on the monument Part II.
File:Monument celebrating first wireless broadcast between Wales and Australia 1918 6.jpg, Detail of inscription on the monument Part III.
File:Monument celebrating first wireless broadcast between Wales and Australia 1918 7.jpg, Bicentennial plaque celebrating the achievement 70 years later in 1988.
References
External links
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fisk, Ernest Thomas
1886 births
1965 deaths
Australian Knights Bachelor
Radio pioneers
20th-century Australian businesspeople
British emigrants to Australia