Marconi Research Centre is the former name of the current

BAE Systems BAE Systems plc (BAE) is a British multinational arms, security, and aerospace company based in London, England. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe, and ranked the seventh-largest in the world based on applicable 2021 revenue ...

Applied Intelligence Laboratories facility at Great Baddow in

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

, United Kingdom. Under its earlier name, research at this site spanned military and civilian technology covering the full range of products offered by GEC-Marconi, including

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that ...

mechatronics Mechatronics engineering also called mechatronics, is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that focuses on the integration of mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering systems, and also includes a combination of robotics, electronics, ...

and

microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre- ...

Origins

Marconi Company The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company that did business under that name from 1963 to 1987. Its roots were in the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 189 ...

chose to establish itself in Chelmsford shortly after the company was founded in 1897. It first acquired the former silk-works on Hall Street before expanding to a new factory, the

New Street Works The New Street Works was a manufacturing plant built for the Marconi Company in Chelmsford, England in 1912. It is credited as being the first purpose-built radio factory in the world. History Guglielmo Marconi had established his company office ...

, in 1912. At the same time a formal Research Department was founded under the auspices of

Charles Samuel Franklin Charles Samuel Franklin (1879 – 10 December 1964), who published as C. S. Franklin, was a noted British radio pioneer. Biography Franklin was born in London, the youngest of a family of 13, and educated at Finsbury Technical College in Finsbury, ...

near the original Hall Street works. The facilities were placed under the direction of the

Admiralty Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong *Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Traf ...

at the outbreak of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. When the Marconi Company resumed control in 1919, it was two years before the Research Department was reconstituted under

H. J. Round Captain Henry Joseph Round (2 June 1881 – 17 August 1966) was an English engineer and one of the early pioneers of radio. He was the first to report observation of electroluminescence from a solid state diode, leading to the discovery of the l ...

, who had previously worked for Franklin, with a separate research team now formed under Franklin himself.

Thomas Eckersley Thomas Lydwell Eckersley FRS (27 December 1886 – 15 February 1959) was an English theoretical physicist and engineer. Biography Eckersley was born in St John's Wood, London, the second of three sons of William Alfred, a civil engineer, and ...

started working for Marconi at this time. By 1924 the Marconi Company had developed short wave radio technology sufficiently to be awarded a contract from the

Post Office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional se ...

to run elements 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 ...

. Further research groups were developed, including one working on

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

. In 1936 it was decided to bring together the various radio, television and telephony research teams in a single location. A site was bought in Great Baddow because it was deemed sufficiently far from potential sources of electrical interference for all research work to be carried out without problems. Building work began in 1937 and by 1938 researchers started working at the site.

Pre-war activity

The new facilities were placed under the direction J. G. Robb. Research under his direction was varied, including a telephone laboratory focusing on audio research, propagation, low noise receivers,

radio direction finding Direction finding (DF), or radio direction finding (RDF), isin accordance with International Telecommunication Union (ITU)defined as radio location that uses the reception of radio waves to determine the direction in which a radio stati ...

and television. A specialist component group developed quartz crystals and gas discharge devices.

Second World War and its aftermath

In April 1940 the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

took charge of the team around Eckersley dealing with

Radio propagation Radio propagation is the behavior of radio waves as they travel, or are propagated, from one point to another in vacuum, or into various parts of the atmosphere. As a form of electromagnetic radiation, like light waves, radio waves are affect ...

. By August 1941, with the

Admiralty Signal Establishment Admiralty most often refers to: *Admiralty, Hong Kong *Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964 *The rank of admiral *Admiralty law Admiralty can also refer to: Buildings * Admiralty, Traf ...

set up, the rest of the laboratories were taken over by the

. When the UK electronics industry developed during the 1940s and 1950s, the campus expanded to include research into radar, general physics, high voltage, vacuum physics and semiconductors. At its peak the Centre employed more than 1,200 engineers, technicians, craftsmen and support staff. It was also home to the

's museum containing numerous original artifacts from the pioneering period of

Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This led to Marconi ...

's work on

wireless telegraphy Wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy is transmission of text messages by radio waves, analogous to electrical telegraphy using cables. Before about 1910, the term ''wireless telegraphy'' was also used for other experimental technologies for ...

The site still includes a prominent local landmark, a -high (110 m) former

Chain Home Chain Home, or CH for short, was the codename for the ring of coastal Early Warning radar stations built by the Royal Air Force (RAF) before and during the Second World War to detect and track aircraft. Initially known as RDF, and given the of ...

radar tower A radar tower is a tower whose function is to support a radar facility, usually a local airport surveillance radar, and hence often at or in the vicinity of an airport or a military air base. In addition, radar towers are used for the installatio ...

visible across the surrounding countryside. The last remaining tower maintaining all of its platforms, the tower was given a Grade II

listed status In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...

in October 2019.

Notable Marconi Research employees and scientists

* Sir Christopher Cockerell * Sir Eric Eastwood, FRS *

, FRS * Frank Farmer * Bernard de Neumann * Peter Wright, author of Spycatcher *

Tony Sale Tony may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tony (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Gregory Tony (born 1978), American law enforcement officer * Motu Tony (born 1981), New Zealand international rugby leag ...

, reconstructor of the

Colossus computer Colossus was a set of computers developed by British codebreakers in the years 1943–1945 to help in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. Colossus used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) to perform Boolean and counting operations. Colossus ...

References

External links

BAE Systems AI Labs official site
{{authority control BAE Systems research and development Buildings and structures in the City of Chelmsford Companies based in the City of Chelmsford Engineering research institutes General Electric Company Guglielmo Marconi History of telecommunications in the United Kingdom Military history of Essex Research and development in the United Kingdom Science and technology in Essex Telecommunications in World War II