Captain Henry Joseph Round (2 June 1881, Kingswinford
, Staffordshire, England
–17 August 1966, Bognor Regis
) was one of the early pioneers of radio and received 117 patents. He was a personal assistant to Guglielmo Marconi.
Henry Joseph Round was the eldest child of Joseph and Gertrude
Round and was born on
2 June 1881. He spent his early years in the small town of
Kingswinford which is in Staffordshire, England.
Henry
Round undertook much of his early education at Cheltenham
Grammar School
. He later attended the Royal College of
Science where he gained first class honors degree.
Round joined the
Marconi Company in
1902 not long after Marconi had made his transatlantic wireless
transmission. He was sent to the USA where he experimented with a
variety of different aspects of radio technology focusing on
technologies such as dust cored tuning
inductors. He also performed some experiments with
transmission paths over land and sea at different times of the day
and investigated direction finding for which he used a frame
antenna.In some later experiments with
cat's whisker detectors using a
variety of substances, he passed current through them and noticed
that some actually gave off light - the first time a
light-emitting diode had been seen.
Round reported this in the
February 9,
1907 edition of
Electrical World. This
is the first known report of the effect of the light-emitting
diode.
The
First World War broke out in
1914 and Round was seconded to Military Intelligence with the rank
of Captain. Using his experience in direction finding he set up a
chain of direction finding stations along the Western Front. These
stations proved so successful that another set was installed in
England. Then in May 1916 they were monitoring transmissions from
the German Navy at anchor at Wilhelmshaven. However on 30 May they
reported a 1.5 degree change in the direction of the signals being
perceived. When they heard of this the British Admiralty, the body
controlling the Navy ordered the British fleet to set sail and
engae them in Battle.
The following day the Battle of
Jutland
was fought. It was the largest sea battle of
all time.
For all his services during the war, Round was awarded the
Military Cross.After the war Round returned
to civilian life and became involved in radio transmitters and was
heavily involved in the first broadcasts made in the United
Kingdom.
For all his successes, Round was made Chief Engineer at Marconi in
1921, but some years later he decided to set up his own
consultancy.
With war breaking out again in 1939, the British Government again
called on his services. This time he was involved in
ASDIC (Anti-Submarine Detection Investigation
Committee) which is known today as
Sonar.
Round died in August 1966 in a nursing home in Bognor Regis after a
short illness.
References
- H. J. Round (9 February 1907) "A note on carborundum,"
Electrical World, vol. 49, page 309.
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