This is an accepted version of this page John Logie Baird FRSE (/ˈloʊɡi bɛərd/;[1] 13 August 1888 – 14 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first mechanical television system on 26 January 1926.

In 2006, Baird was named as one of the 10 greatest Scottish scientists in history, having been listed in the National Library of Scotland's 'Scottish Science Hall of Fame'.

[10] Baird was born on 13 August 1888 in Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire, and was the youngest of four children of the Reverend John Baird, the Church of Scotland's minister for the local St Bride's Church, and Jessie Morrison Inglis, the orphaned niece of the wealthy Inglis family of shipbuilders from Glasgow.

Unable to go to the front, he took a job with the Clyde Valley Electrical Power Company, which was engaged in munitions work.

[14][page needed] In early 1923, and in poor health, Baird moved to 21 Linton Crescent, Hastings, on the south coast of England.

Baird built what was to become the world's first working television set using items that included an old hatbox and a pair of scissors, some darning needles, a few bicycle light lenses, a used tea chest, and sealing wax and glue that he purchased.

[15] In February 1924, he demonstrated to the Radio Times that a semi-mechanical analogue television system was possible by transmitting moving silhouette images.

[16] In July of the same year, he received a 1000-volt electric shock but survived with only a burnt hand but, as a result, his landlord, Mr Tree, asked him to vacate the premises.

[22] In June 1924, Baird purchased thallium sulfide (developed by Theodore Case in the US)[23] from Cyril Frank Elwell.

He improved the signal conditioning from the thallium sulfide "cell" via temperature optimisation (cooling) and his own custom-designed video amplifier,[23] pioneering the technology we now use today.

Baird gave the first public demonstration of moving silhouette images by television at Selfridges department store in London in a three-week period beginning on 25 March 1925.

[24] On 26 January 1926, Baird gave the first public demonstration of true television images for members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times in his laboratory at 22 Frith Street in the Soho district of London, where Bar Italia is now located.

On 2 November 1936, from Alexandra Palace located on the high ground of the north London ridge, the BBC began alternating Baird 240-line transmissions with EMI's electronic scanning system, which had recently been improved to 405-lines after a merger with Marconi.

The Baird system at the time involved an intermediate film process, where footage was shot on cinefilm, which was rapidly developed and scanned.

"Of all the electro-mechanical television techniques invented and developed by the mid 1930s, the technology known as Scophony had no rival in terms of technical performance.

The Baird company used the Farnsworth tubes instead to scan cinefilm, in which capacity they proved serviceable though prone to drop-outs and other problems.

Baird persuaded them to make plans to adopt his proposed 1000-line Telechrome electronic colour system as the new post-war broadcast standard.

Baird suffered from cold feet, and after several trials, he found that an extra layer of cotton inside the sock provided warmth.

[48] The system consisted of a large Nipkow scanning disk attached by a mechanical linkage to a record-cutting lathe.

There is discussion about his exact contribution to the development of radar, for his wartime defence projects have never been officially acknowledged by the UK government.

[52] From December 1944, Logie Baird lived at 1 Station Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, he later died there on 14 June 1946 after suffering a stroke in February.