Author Taylor George Augustine

lorence Taylor flew in her husband's glider on the same day. Much gliding had been done in America and Europe many years before this, but the principle and design of Taylor's machine appear to have anticipated the types being used in Europe more than 10 years later. In wireless Taylor did some excellent pioneer work. He had been experimenting for a long time, and in 1909 had had sufficient success to be invited to join the Australian military forces as an intelligence officer in connexion with aeronautics and wireless. In 1910 and 1911 he succeeded in communicating from one part of a railway train to another, and in exchanging messages between trains running at full speed. He had founded the aerial league in 1909 and the wireless institute in 1911. It was largely on account of his representations that the first government wireless station was erected in Australia. He did some interesting experimental work in connexion with locating sound by wireless, which proved useful in the 1914-18 war when methods of locating submarines had to be devised. Taylor visited Europe in 1922 and studied broadcasting developments. On his return at the end of that year he formed an association for developing wireless in Australia and was elected its president. At a conference of wireless experts called together by the Commonwealth government in May 1923 Taylor was elected chairman, and did valuable work in framing broadcasting regulations for Australia. He was also a pioneer in the transmission of sketches by wireless, both in black and white and in colour. Taylor had for many years before this conducted a successful monthly trade journal called Building, of which he was proprietor and editor. Gradually other magazines were added, including the Australasian Engineer, the Soldier, the Commonwealth Home, and the Radio Journal of Australasia. He also published two volumes of popular verse, Songs for Soldiers (1913), and Just Jingles (1922), and some small volumes of sketches and stories. He was much interested in town-planning, and published in 1914 Town Planning for Australia and in 1918 Town Planning with Common-sense. An epileptic, he died as the result of a seizure in his bathtub on 20 January 1928 leaving his wife, Florence Mary Taylor, a widow. In 1929 a gift of £1100 was made to the University of Sydney by the G. A. Taylor memorial committee to found a lectureship in aviation or aeronautical engineering in his memory. George Augustine Taylor was never an inventor of wireless. George Taylor was a frequent visitor to the Shaw Wireless Works at Randwick NSW. The Shaw wireless works were named after the catholic priest Father Archibald Shaw, a member of the order of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. The wireless works were built by the well known wireless inventor and operator Edward Hope Kirkby. They were built to build Kirkby’s system of fire protection devices. Kirkby was an acknowledged expert on all things wireless being interviewed by newspapers on the workings of wireless as early as 1905. The wireless works were built at the site of the procure of the orders missions in the Pacific at the house Ascot in Dutruc St Randwick NSW. Shaw, with his superior, Father Guis were responsible for supplying the missions with all their needs and the house was also used to give respite to the missionaries returning from the islands. The procure was always short of money so Shaw devised with Kirkby a plan that the works would be used to build wireless for profit. Kirkby moved into the house Ascot and taught Shaw all he knew about wireless together they conducted experiments. When Taylor needed to demonstrate or talk about the use of wireless he used Kirkby. Taylor wrote in his pamphlet “By wireless” on his wireless demonstrations at Heathcote that he had three operators who had bought their own equipment. One, Kirkby, “was a sick man, only coming at my most earnest solicitations.” The other two operators were Wilkinson and Hannam. Hannam later went with Mawson on his expedition to the Antarctic as his radio operator. Kirkby had to leave when his sickness overcome him but the experiments continued, run by Wilkinson and Hannam. Taylor wrote of the success “every credit must be given to the ardent enthusiasm of Messers. Kirkby, Wilkinson and Hannam. Taylor recounts how he rode between stations observing the activities of the operators as they conducted the experiments. Taylor’s biography describes his contribution as: “Typically the only person not mentioned was himself.” Taylor didn’t mention himself because he didn’t do any testing. Taylor’s biography describes Kirkby “as one of the most knowledgeable of George Taylor’s co-experimentalists“. Taylor’s biography was written in 1957 nearly 30 years after Taylor’s death. It was written to laud Taylor’s achievements, which were many deservedly so, but radio invention was not one of them. When Taylor gave his talk on the air age and its military significance it was Kirkby that had built the wireless set and demonstrated it. It was Kirkby who was the wireless inventor. We[who?] note here that Taylor never used Father Shaw for any of his enterprises. “By Wireless” How we got the signals through by George A Taylor Lieut Army Intelligence Corps, The Air Age and its Military Significance By George A Taylor Lieut Army Intelligence Corps, Some Chapters in the Life of George Augustine Taylor by J.M. Giles