OTD in early British television: 26 April 1938
John Wyver writes: We take for granted live coverage and analysis of Budget speeches today, but television had to learn how to make such broadcasts, a process that began on Tuesday 26 April 1938. That evening from the studio at Alexandra Palace economist and tax expert Sir Josiah Stamp, G.C.B., G.C.E. (no, me neither) provided ‘an eyewitness account of the Budget speech’ given earlier that day by Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir John Simon.
This was preceded by a commentary from broadcaster (and noted marine biologist) Geoffrey Tandy accompanied by visuals valiantly compiled by Hannia Heyman (who appears to have left no other archival trace). Explaining that the year’s budget estimate was more than one billion pounds sterling, Tandy dug into the details. And mention of the time civil servants took to prepare the figures was paired with an image of a pile of Estimate Books.
As ‘G.G.W.’ noted in The Listener, this was followed by
references to such points as the payment of judges, illustrated on the screen by a judge’s wig; to the civil list… illustrated by a picture of the Crown Jewels; to the cost of defence, illustrated first by newspaper contents bills, then by drawings of guns and ships, a teleciné of aeroplanes flying in formation; [and] a soldier (lent for the purpose by the War Office) sloping arms.
Although sceptical about the value of any of this, ‘G.G.W.’ (and I wish I knew who this was) went on to make the important point that,
If television can devise some sort of mobile diagram in which figures move and lines rise and fall to illustrate the points made by the speaker, then it seems likely that television will be able to evolve a method of illustrating the news which no other medium has yet offered.
Indeed.
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