Television Pioneer Dies
We are sad to note the death of Ray Herbert, one of John Logie Baird's co-workers, on 20 July 2005.
Ray Herbert was one of the last remaining former employees of Baird Television Limited, joining the company after it had moved to the Crystal Palace in South London and suffered in the disastrous fire that destroyed the building in 1936.
While Ray was not directly involved in Baird's 30-line experiments in the late 1920s and early 30s, nor in the development that proceeded on 240-line transmissions for use by the BBC Television Service in 1936 (alongside the EMI-Marconi system that succeeded it early the following year), he helped to develop the Intermediate Film technique for additional applications, including installing a system in a French military aircraft for reconnaisance, and the transmitters and other equipment used by Baird for his large-screen, colour, high-resolution and stereoscopic television experiments. Like many television engineers, he worked extensively on radar development during the War.
In his later years, Ray Herbert went on to assemble an extensive archive of photographs and other materials showing the work of Baird and his company through the years from the very earliest experiments onwards, and remained one of the few able to document the period of Baird Television's activities at the Crystal Palace, a formerly widely forgotten aspect of the history of British television. Ray made his materials, and his knowledge, widely available to researchers such as the current writer (making articles like this possible) and his knowledge, support and kindly helpfulness will long be remembered.
Not only has television lost a pioneer; it has also lost a light on the past that illuminated our understanding of the very birth of television in Britain. Ray Herbert will be sadly missed, and we pass our condolences to family and friends.
