The Marconi Scandal

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At the very least (and I have stated this clearly in old threads) the criticism some of us have made on here of Phillips and Bride was not properly explored at the British Inquiry, and the simple fact that the Attorney General was the brother of the General Manager of ‘Marconi UK’ raises conflicts of interest. After a short stay in the hospital of the Carpathia I was asked to assist Mr. Cottam, the operator, who seemed fairly worn out with work. Bride’s letter to W Cross is what is called ‘self serving’ evidence. I’m sorry, but I don’t ‘buy’ any of Bride’s accounts. Bride didn’t have any credibility as a witness. All this stuff about a stoker trying to remove a life belt from Phillips when Phillips still had his headset on. Taking the MSG from The Californian to the Antillian to to the Captain - no it wasn’t the Captain - it was an unidentified Officer instead. Doing his accounts when that MSG came through - what accounts?!! Titanic had only sent very few messages that day by that time! (The charges were worked out on the individual Marconigram forms top right).

Main Article ▲ Primary Sources (1) David Lloyd George, speech in the House of Commons (11th October, 1912) The Barbarians." In: Alfred Bingham (ed.), Handbook of the European War. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1914.By the time the 'Marconi Scandal' had reached its conclusion in 1914, the Marconi Company suffered massive losses in terms of finances, pride and public confidence, along with the loss of the Imperial Wireless Scheme contract. However, "from all this political turmoil the Marconi Company, as a Company, emerged with colours tattered but still flying." It was a weakened but still formidable Marconi Company that would await the perils and successes of World War One in August 1914.

Overall American Marconi's patent rights were sufficient to give it a leading role in the U.S., and in his review of radio industry legal disputes, W. Rupert MacLaurin noted that "The position of American Marconi was such that the threat of suit was often sufficient to cause an infringing firm to halt its operations." MacLaurin found a total of ten patent infringement cases involving American Marconi which had entered the court system. In eight instances the company was the plaintiff, winning in four and losing three, with one case discontinued. In the two suits where it was the defendant, American Marconi prevailed in one and lost the other. [19] In exonerating the three leading Liberals, the Committee, on which Mr. William Redmond of the Irish Party served, denounced those publications which had encouraged rumours they had ‘no reason’ to believe were true. It was claimed that there had been a ‘slander of particularly vile character on the Ministers against whom it was immediately directed, and on the whole public life of the nation.’ Asquith announced that he would set-up a committee to look into the possibility of insider dealings. The committee had six Liberals (including the chairman, Albert Spicer), two Irish Nationalists and one Labour MP, which provided a majority over six Conservatives. The committee took evidence from witnesses for the next six months and caused the Government a great deal of embarrassment. (18)Within days of the bill's unveiling (27 March), Lloyd George denounced "priestcraft" in a speech to his constituents, and he began an active campaign of speaking against the bill, both in public in Wales (with a few speeches in England) and in the House of Commons. On 12 November, Balfour accepted an amendment (willingly, but a rare case of him doing so), ostensibly from Alfred Thomas, chairman of the Welsh Parliamentary Liberal Party, but in reality instigated by Lloyd George, transferring control of Welsh schools from appointed boards to the elected county councils. The Education Act became law on 20 December 1902. [41] :52–7 This I reported to Mr. Phillips on his return, but suggested "M B C" was to far away to be of any use. Lloyd George set up a War Policy Committee (himself, Curzon, Milner, Law and Smuts, with Maurice Hankey as secretary) to discuss strategy, which held 16 meetings over the next six weeks. At the very first meeting (11 June) Lloyd George proposed helping the Italians to capture Trieste, [100] explicitly telling the War Policy Committee (21 June 1917) that he wanted Italian soldiers to be killed rather than British. [101] I have forgotten to mention that the United States Government sent out a ship, as they said, to assist us named the Chester.