First case using wireless communications - history
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Photo courtesy of executedtoday.com.
At the first UK MTEB Mobile Forensics Conference 2009, last week (25th/26th Nov), the speaker Adam Gersch (Barrister 23 Essex Street) provided the audience with a refreshing reminder of the first case in the UK that made use of wireless telegraphy communication evidence in criminal proceedings noted in the landmark case of Dr (Hawley Harvey) Crippen. Dr Crippen was caught whilst escaping onboard a ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean by the eagle-eyed Ship's Captain who suspected two passengers travelling under the name of 'John Robinson' to be Crippen and his girlfriend (dressed as a boy) as the ‘cellar-murder fugitive and his friend’ wanted by the Police and on the run.
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In the nick of time the Ship's Captain sent a wireless telegram to the authorities before the ship would be out of radio range for ship-to-shore wireless communications to let them know of their presence on board his ship. Dr Crippen was found guilty at trial and was executed at Pentonville Prison on the 23rd November 1910.
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Links to background of Dr Crippen Case:
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As an analogy, perhaps a wireless telegram back then would most probably equate today as a wireless telegraphy SMS text message (in terms of mobile telephones). This case is a useful reminder of the importance radio provided back then and still today mobile communications new and exciting evolution continues to provide important communication services, infrastructure and networks, nationally and internationally.
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Mobile Communications Science History:
Of course, the mobile telephone's use of wireless telegraphy has its roots in scientific history long before the hybrid computer was even dreamt about:
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- 1868: James Clerk Maxwell postulates EM wave phenomenon ethereal wind theory
- 1886: Heinrich Rudolf Hertz establishes proof of EM wave (Hertz cycle)
- 1893:Gugliemo Marconi first use of wireless and first patent of wireless communications
- 1905: Reginald Fessenden first transmission of speech and music via a wireless link
- 1908: Nathan B. Stubblefield invented and patented the first mobile telephone over 100-years ago
- etc
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