H. H. T Burbury interested me because, as well as being the first
person listed on the Return to the House of Commons, he lived in
Crigglestone, a small town on the outskirts of Wakefield, where I was
living at the time.
Research into local history of Crigglestone provided quite a bit of
detail of where he had lived, but not very much in the way of details
of what his experiments consisted of. From a booklet "Backtrack
3, Past Reflections of a Rural Parish" by Keith Wainwright, published
in December 1995, I discovered that he lectured three times a week over
the air between Cliffe House and Halifax in the early 1900s
and, from other sources, that he may have met Marconi
through links that his Brother-In-Law had
with the great man, but more of that later...
Herbert Henry Taylor Burbury lived at Cliffe House, in Crigglestone,
Wakefield, West Yorkshire from March 1900 when he bought the property
from Mary Mackie. At that time he was a linen manufacturer and
local resident. From copies of the Wakefield Herald and Wakefield
Express from the time, I found out that he had a daughter, who was born
on 2nd April 1900 at Crigglestone, but I have not been able to track
down details of his wife or any other children that they may have had.
In September 1939 Cliffe House was sold to Albert Shaw, a local
butcher, and the house was converted into several residences.
Unfortunately, there were reports of under mining and the house
was demolished by the Coal Board in 1953. The area where the
house had stood no longer exists as it was taken when the M1 motorway,
linking London and Leeds, was built. I know of the existence of a
picture of the house, but I have not yet managed to get a copy, or
permission to use it. However, I plan to try again.
H. H. T. Burburys' sister, Alice Burbury, married Henry Jackson (RN), who was another well known exponent of Wireless, having carried out experiments for the Navy on the torpedo school ship HMS Defiance.
According to the records at the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB)
H. H. T. Burbury held two callsigns. 2AW was used from his home
in Crigglestone and 6GC was issued for portable operations in 1926.
The practice of having a letter before the callsign did not start
until much later and all early callsigns, for the UK, started with a
number. Other famous callsigns of the period included 2MT in
Chelmsford, 2LO, in London, 2ZY, in Manchester and 5NO, Newcastle,
which provided the stations that started the British Broadcasting
Company (later renamed the British Broadcasting Corporation) during
1922. For more details please go to UK Radio a brief history