Cyril Frank Elwell - Pioneer of American and European Wireless Communications, Talking Pictures and founder of C.F. Elwell Limited, 1921-1925

In many ways an enigma, Cyril Frank Elwell defies conventional typecasting. Born in Australia in 1884 to an American father and a German mother, Elwell received his engineering credentials from California's Stanford University at the turn of the twentieth century. He was, in fact, probably the first entrepreneur-engineer of what was to become northern California's "Silicon Valley". Later, as an early pioneer of wireless communications, he split his time between the United States, Great Britain and Continental Europe. Elwell's professional contributions encompassed long-distance wireless transmission, domestic wireless, cinematics, radar tower design anm more. But despite a legitimate claim to world-class technical achievements, he received little recognition in his lifetime and has been largely forgotten since his death in 1963. Drawing from primary source materials and with an emphasis on Cyril Elwell's British enterprises, this book seeks to document the man, the organisations he founded and the technologies he touched.