The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 which was a pioneer of wireless long distance communication and mass media broadcasting, eventually becoming one of the UK's most successful manufacturing companies.
Its roots were in the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, which underwent several changes in name after mergers and acquisitions. In 1999, its defence equipment manufacturing division, Marconi Electronic Systems, merged with British Aerospace (BAe) to form BAE Systems. In 2006, financial difficulties led to the collapse of the remaining company, with the bulk of the business acquired by the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson.
1897–1900: The Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company
1900–1963: Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company
1963–1987: Marconi Company Ltd
1998–1999: Marconi Electronic Systems Ltd
1999–2003: Marconi plc, with Marconi Communications as principal subsidiary
2003–2006: Marconi Corporation plc
Marconi's "Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company" was formed on 20 July 1897 after a British patent for wireless technology was granted on 2 July that year. The company opened the world's first radio factory on Hall Street in Chelmsford northeast of London in 1898 and was responsible for some of the most important advances in radio and television. These include:
The diode vacuum tube in 1904 (Fleming)
Transatlantic radio broadcasting between Clifden, Ireland and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, 17 October 1907
High frequency tuned broadcasting
Formation of the British Broadcasting Company (later to become the independent BBC)
Formation of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America (assets acquired by RCA in 1920)
Marconi International Marine Communication Company (M.I.M.C.Co.), founded 1900 in London
Compagnie de Télégraphie sans Fil (C.T.S.F.), founded 1900 in the City of Brussels
The subsidiary Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, also called "American Marconi", was founded in 1899. It was the dominant radio communications provider in the US until the formation of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1919.
In 1900 the company's name was changed to "Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company", and Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Training College was established in 1901. The company and factory was moved within Chelmsford to New Street Works in 1912 to allow for production expansion in light of the RMS Titanic disaster. Along with private entrepreneurs, the Marconi company formed in 1924 the Unione Radiofonica Italiana (URI), which was granted by Mussolini's regime a monopoly of radio broadcasts in 1924. After the war, URI became the RAI, which lives on to this day.