Marconi’s New Street Works 1912 - 2012

The Marconi New Street works in Chelmsford, Essex was the world’s first purpose built wireless factory and became the world’s first electronics factory using mass production techniques. For well over ninety years the huge factory was the centre of the massive Marconi Company Empire that stretched across the world. However, the disastrous collapse of the Marconi Company prompted the abandonment of the huge complex of offices, workshops, laboratories, test areas and manufacturing plant that alone once employed over 10,000 people. When the factory was opened in 1912, the SS Titanic had just sunk in the middle of the Atlantic and 711 lives were saved solely due to the use of Guglielmo Marconi’s invention and the brave Marconi wireless operators aboard. It was the tragedy of the Titanic that gave birth to the modern wireless age and spurred a growth in manufacture and development that probably could not have occurred otherwise. One hundred years later in 2012 the site stands empty and vandalised.This is the story of the world’s first wireless factory, partly told in the words of the people who worked there. Within its walls the science and art of wireless communication was born. I also firmly believe that this is where the modern electronics age, be it radio, television, radar, satellite or even mobile telephones was born. The Marconi New Street Works, 1912 - 2012, was the birthplace of Britain’s last industrial revolution.