Edward Harper (engineer)

Edward Harper (1873 – ) was a British engineer who travelled to Colombo in 1921 to work in the Ceylon Telegraph Department.

[2] Harper together with Ceylonese and English radio enthusiasts founded the Ceylon Wireless Club.

They experimented with radio broadcasts in 1923 the first experiments took place from a tiny room in the Central Telegraph Office - gramophone music was broadcast with the aid of a small transmitter captured from a German submarine.

Ceylon plays an equal role in the beginnings of broadcasting alongside Europe and the United States of America.

On 16 December 1925 a regular broadcasting service was launched in Colombo.

Edward Harper's pioneering radio experiments led to the inauguration of Radio Ceylon, the oldest radio station in South Asia . Radio Ceylon was known as the 'King of the Airwaves' on the Indian sub-continent.