John Logie Baird (August 13 1888 – June 14 1946) was a Scottish engineer, who is best known for being the first person to demonstrate a working television.

Baird was born in Helensburgh, Argyll, Scotland, and educated at Larchfield School (now part of Lomond School), Helensburgh; the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College (which later became the University of Strathclyde); and the University of Glasgow. His degree course was interrupted by World War I and he never graduated.

In his first attempts to invent television, Baird experimented with the Nipkow disk and demonstrated that a semi-mechanical analogue television system was possible with the transmission of a static image of a ventriloquist's dummy in London in February 1924. This early system was highly primitive—images were difficult to view and transmitted only in shades of brown. On October 30, 1925 the first moving image was transmitted—the now famous grainy image of a ventriloquists dummy's head. Baird later transmitted the image of a local boy he had paid to take part in his experiments to a crowd of onlookers. Although the development of television was the result of work by many inventors (including Baird, Paul Gottlieb Nipkow and Boris Rosing; see Television: History), Baird is one of its foremost pioneers. He is generally credited with being the first person to produce a discernible image on a television screen, and went on to produce other advances in the field. Hastings, in East Sussex, UK, claims to be the 'Birthplace of Television' as it was there he was living for health reasons when he did much of his research work into his televisor. Hastings would claim to be the place where television was first actually perfected and demonstrated.

At this time and up until his death in 1946 Baird lived at a house in Station Road, Bexhill On Sea - immediately north of the Station itself. Currently named "Baird Court" Rother District Council gave permission for this property to be demolished and the land used for a modern block of flats in 2006, despite the efforts of many local resident who believed that this property should be listed and preserved due to it's historical importance.

The first public demonstration was in the Selfridges department store in London. The system was also demonstrated to the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times on January 27, 1926 in the Soho district of London.

In 1927 Baird transmitted a signal over 438 miles of telephone line between London and Glasgow. He then set up the Baird Television Development Company Ltd, which in 1928 made the first transatlantic television transmission from London to Hartsdale, New York and also made the first television programme for the BBC. He televised the first live transmission of the Epsom Derby in 1931.

From 1929 onwards, the BBC broadcasted television programs using the Baird system, alternating the broadcasts with Marconi's broadcasts of electronic scanning system television signals during the 1930s. This setup continued until the company ceased broadcasts with the Baird system, much to Baird's protest, in 1937.

Eventually, due to its many shortcomings, Baird's mechanical television system was replaced by the electronic television system described by A.A. Campbell-Swinton and later developed by Philo T. Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworykin.

Baird's numerous other developments demonstrate his particular talent at invention. He developed, in 1928, a primitive video recording device, which he dubbed Phonovision. The system consisted of a Phonodisc, which was a 78rpm record that could play a 30 line video signal. His other developments were in fibre-optics, radio direction finding, infrared night viewing and radar. There still remain, however, questions about his exact contributions to the development of radar, for his wartime defense projects have never been officially acknowledged by the British government. According to Malcolm Baird, his son, what is known is that in 1926 Baird filed a patent for a device that formed images from reflected radio waves, a device remarkably similar to radar, and that he was in correspondence with the British government at the time. Much of the information regarding Baird's work in this area is just beginning to emerge.

Baird made many other contributions to the field of television before and after his mechanical system fell into disfavor. In 1928 he demonstrated the first colour television and true stereoscopic television. In 1932 he was the first to demonstrate ultra-short wave transmission. In 1941 he demonstrated a 600 line HDTV colour system, and during 1944 he tried to persuade British authorities to adopt a 1000+ line colour system as standard. He also demonstrated a big screen television system at the London Coliseum, Berlin, Paris and Stockholm.

Baird died in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, England in 1946 after suffering a stroke in February of that year.

There is a working model of the Baird televisor in the London Science Museum.

• Logie Awards - Australian television
• University of Strathclyde

• Baird on DigitalCentury.com
• Mechanical TV: Baird Television
• Baird bio on BBC site
• How to build a Baird televisor - also contains many detailed references to Baird's history
• John Logie Baird - Gizmohighway Technology Guide
• Narrow Bandwidth Television Association
• Phonovision

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