'Mr Baird was so excited that words didn't come': The office worker who became the first person ever to appear on TV

A century ago, on 2 October 1925, the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird successfully transmitted a recognisable moving image of a human face. The original TV star was a young office worker, William Taynton, who returned to television 40 years later to tell the BBC about that dramatic moment.

Scientists had been working on the invention of television as far back as the 1850s, but it took a lone maverick working with salvaged bicycle lamps, scrap wood and biscuit tins to make it a reality. Before his big breakthrough, John Logie Baird was a serial inventor who enjoyed mixed success. Plagued by ill-health for most of his life, the son of a clergyman was declared medically unfit to serve in World War One.

Instead, he began work for an electricity company while retaining a fiercely entrepreneurial streak. Inspired by a short story by his idol, science-fiction writer HG Wells, he attempted to make artificial diamonds out of carbon by using huge amounts of electricity. He succeeded only in knocking out part of Glasgow's power supply. As for a disastrous homemade haemorrhoid cure, it was a textbook example of the type of activity that would have future television presenters warning, "Don't try this at home."

Despite these setbacks, Baird managed to find some commercial success. With leftover capital from the sale of his socks and soap businesses, he rented modest premises in Hastings on the south coast of England in 1923. The sea air proved to be good for his weak lungs, but his working environment was a health-and-safety nightmare. He set up a laboratory to begin his television experiments, improvising his apparatus from scrap materials such as an old tea chest fitted with an engine. At the centre of Baird's system was a large disc spinning at high speed to scan images line by line using photodetectors and intense light. These signals were then transmitted and reconstructed to produce moving pictures. When he succeeded in transmitting a silhouette, the decades-long dream of creating television moved into focus.

After Baird was burned by an electric shock in his Hastings laboratory, it was time for him to move to the bright lights of London. He rented a flat above a business at 22 Frith Street in Soho and set up a new laboratory. His mechanical device emitted such fierce heat that it was difficult for humans to withstand the intensity. In his experiments, he had to use a ventriloquist's dummy that he nicknamed Stooky Bill. But on 2 October 1925, the 37-year-old enlisted a human guinea pig and made an astonishing breakthrough.

Enter William Taynton, a 20-year-old office boy who was working downstairs from Baird's makeshift laboratory. He told the BBC 40 years later to the day: "Mr Baird came rushing down full of excitement and almost dragged me out of my office to go to his small laboratory. I think he was so excited at the time that words didn't come. He almost grabbed me and wanted me to get upstairs as quickly as possible."

When Taynton came across the ramshackle state of Baird's laboratory, he said he felt like running straight back down the stairs. First, he had to navigate his way through wires dangling from the ceiling and strewn all over the floor. "The apparatus he used in those days was a shambles," said Taynton. "I mean, he had cardboard discs with bicycle lenses and things in it, and lamps of all sorts, and old batteries, and some very old motors he used to make the disc go around."

Baird sat him down in front of his transmitter: the human subject who could provide the necessary motion that the stalwart Stooky Bill couldn't. Taynton said that he began to feel the heat and was scared, but Baird assured him he had nothing to worry about. "He disappeared to go down to the receiving end to see if he could see a picture," Taynton recalled. "I got into focus, but couldn't stop there much more than a minute because of the terrific heat from these lamps, so I pulled away." For his troubles, Baird pressed half a crown (two shillings and six pence) into Taynton's hand – "the first television fee" – and persuaded him to get back into position.

In homes throughout the world

To capture some movement, Baird asked him to poke out his tongue and make funny faces. Increasingly panicked, Taynton shouted to him that he was "getting roasted alive". "He shouted back, 'Hang on a few seconds longer, William, a few seconds if you can.' So I did, and I really stopped as long as I possibly could until I just couldn't stop any longer, and I pulled out of focus in the terrific heat; it was very uncomfortable. And with that, Mr Baird came running around from the receiving end with his arms up in the air and he said, 'I've seen you, William, I've seen you. I've got television at last, the first true television picture.'"

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Taynton had no idea what was meant by "television", so Baird suggested they swap places. Taynton was glad to get away "because he seemed so excited and a bit mad to me at the time". He looked down a small tunnel to see "a tiny picture about the size of 2in x 3in (5cm x 8cm)". He said: "All of a sudden, Baird's face came on to the screen. You could see his eyes shutting, and his mouth, and movements he made. It wasn't good, mind you. There was no definition there; you just saw the shadow and the lines all running down. But it was a picture, and it was moving, too, and that was the main thing that Baird achieved. He had achieved a true television picture."  

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Still in the flush of excitement, Baird asked Taynton what he thought of his creation. "I came out point blank and said, 'I don't think much of it, Mr Baird. It's very crude. I could see your face, but there was no definition or anything there.' And he said no, that was the beginning of it. He said, 'That's the first television and you'll find that it'll be in all the homes throughout the country, and in fact, right throughout the world.'" On 26 January of the following year, Baird gave the world's first public demonstration of television. While his pioneering machine was ultimately overtaken by technology developed by better resourced firms, he had paved the way for everything that followed.

In 1951, five years after Baird's death at the age of 57, Taynton returned to 22 Frith Street in Soho for the unveiling of a commemorative blue plaque. Sir Robert Renwick, president of the Television Society, told those gathered: "Although this memorial plaque stands in the heart of London, his real memorial is in the forest of aerials that are springing up over the whole country." And just a few years after Taynton's 1965 recollection of his cameo role in broadcasting history, people around the world were glued to their television sets to watch the Moon landings. Science fiction had become science fact.

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