Artie Moore

Artie Moore was born in Pontllanfraith, the eldest son of local miller, William Moore. At a young age Artie was involved in an accident at the mill, which resulted in the loss of the lower part of one of his legs, and for the rest of his life, he wore a wooden leg. By the age of ten, Artie had developed an interest in amateur engineering and using his own initiative he adapted a bicycle to cater for his wooden leg, and locals recall him rattling around the village on it, making a nuisance of himself. As he grew, he became what is known as a ‘character’ in the locality, and was constantly playing tricks of all sorts.

At some point prior to the year 1909, most likely in his early teenage years, Artie, a keen amateur engineer, using a hand made lathe driven by the water-wheel at the mill, built a working model of a horizontal steam

engine.

He entered the model in a competition in The Model Engineer magazine. He

received as his prize a book by Sir Oliver Lodge entitled Modern Views Of

Magnetism And Electricity, which awakened his interest in wireless.

Working at Gelligroes Mill in Pontllanfraith near Blackwood, Gwent, he soon began

 erecting wire aerials and building his rudimentary radio station, consisting of a

coherer-based receiver and a spark-gap transmitter. It was his considerable

engineering spirit that enabled him to store electricity in his batteries via a

generator coupled to the mill wheel itself. The same generator was also used to

charge batteries for the local farms which were at that time not connected to the

mains supply.

Artie was almost continually experimenting with wireless by this time, often defying his father and staying up late into the early hours, sitting at his station listening to the signals emanating from ships, both naval and merchant, travelling the coastal waters around Wales, the south-west of England, as well as stations on the Continent.

Sometimes, in an attempt to improve reception he would relocate his station and set it up at a farm high up on Mynydd Islwyn.

Using the contemporary although basic spark-gap transmitter technology of the time, Artie together with his friend Richard Jenkins, an electrical engineer at the local coal mine, made what was probably the first use in Wales of amateur wireless for business purposes.

Having set up a second transmitting and receiving station at Ty Llwyd farm, owned by Richard’s father which was located approximately three and a half miles south of Gelligroes at Ynysddu in the direction of Newport, Artie received an order over the air for grain to be delivered from the mill to the farm. This would have been around 1910, but you can’t help but wonder what they would make of today’s business radio, mobile telephones, or even ordering over the Internet!

A further exciting development took place when Artie made the front page of the London newspaper The Daily Sketch after he intercepted the Italian government’s Declaration Of War on Libya in 1911.

In 1912, Artie was 26 years old and his wireless construction knowledge and skills had improved to such an extent that he was able to build more sensitive receiving equipment and he therefore began to receive transmissions on a regular basis, often relaying the information to the locals sometimes many days before it appeared in the national press.

But it was his reception of the Titanic’s distress call which propelled Artie into a career that was to take him from that little mill in Wales and on to greater things within the realms of early wireless development.

In the summer of 1912, Artie’s activities and the publicity surrounding him following the Titanic disaster soon led to him coming to the attention of the then Monmouthshire Education Committee, who offered him a scholarship to the British School of Telegraphy in Clapham, London, so he left to embark on his studies in the world of science and wireless communication.

 Enter Marconi

After studying for just three months, Artie was advised by the Principal there to enter for a Government examination in Wireless Telegraphy and Morse Code, in which he was successful. It was at this time that Artie’s activities, not least his reception of the Titanic’s distress calls, came to the attention of Guglielmo Marconi, the ‘father of wireless’ himself. One local resident wrote to Marconi to inform him of Artie’s achievement.

Marconi then came to Gelligroes to meet Artie and to discuss his work and his experiments, and he invited Artie to join the Marconi Company as a draughtsman.

By 1914, Artie was transferred to the Ship Equipment Department of the Marconi Company, and on the outbreak of the First World War he was engaged as a technician in ‘special Admiralty fittings’ – working on the armed merchant ships which operated clandestinely on the open seas and were known as ‘Q’ ships.

He also supervised the installation of wireless equipment on the Dreadnought-class battleships HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible which steamed the 8,000 miles south to the Falkland Islands in 1914, to face down a German naval threat to the south Atlantic islands.

Connected with the Admiralty through the Marconi Company, Artie later became assistant to Captain H.J. Round (who was himself Chief Assistant to Guglielmo Marconi), and he worked with Captain Round on the further development of the thermionic radio valve without which advancements in radio could not have taken place.

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