Invented by: Guglielmo Marconi (Radio)

Information: Guglielmo Marconi was born near Bologna in Italy in 1847. When he was 20, he heard about a discovery that another scientist had made. This scientist had shown that there are invisible waves that travel through the air. Marconi thought that it would be possible to send messages over these waves, and start experimenting. He needed to make two machines one which would send the messages, and one, which received them.
His first success was in making a bell ring by sending a (wireless) signal across a room. Later, he increased the distance that the signals could be sent to over 3 km.
Nobody in Italy wanted to give him money to start making his machines, so he moved to Britain and in 1901 took out a patent for them. Here in Britain, the Post Office, the army and the navy were all interested in his invention.

Nowadays radio is used more for entertainment but we do still hear news bulletins and information on it.

People had been trying to send and receive information without using wires and cables for a long time, but it was Marconi who actually managed it. He made a radio wave transmitter using sparks and a receiver to pick the waves up and turn them into electricity again. This electricity was then turned into sound.
In 1901, he managed to send signals from England to America, although it was in Morse code (lots of dots and dashes).

Sending speech across great distances came much later.

Victorians Inventions Page