Arthur Ernest Moore (29 April 1887 – 20 January 1949) was a Welsh

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

pioneer who heard the distress signal from on his home-made equipment before news of the disaster reached Britain. He subsequently worked for the

Marconi Company The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 which was a pioneer of wireless long distance communication and mass media broadcasting, eventually becoming on ...

, helping to develop radio and

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances ( ranging), communicate with or detect objects o ...

Early life

Arthur Ernest Moore was born in

Pontllanfraith Pontllanfraith () is a large village and Community (Wales), community located in the Sirhowy Valley in Caerphilly County Borough, Wales, within the Historic counties of Wales, historic boundaries of Monmouthshire (historic), Monmouthshire. It is ...

, near Blackwood, where his father owned

Gelligroes Mill Gelligroes Mill is a water-powered corn mill in Pontllanfraith, Caerphilly county borough, South Wales, designated as a Grade II* listed building in 1962. The mill is equipped with an overshot wheel with a cast iron frame and wooden buckets. When ...

. At a young age Moore was involved in an accident at the mill which resulted in the loss of the lower part of one of his legs. For the rest of his life, he wore a wooden leg. By the age of ten, Moore had developed an interest in amateur engineering and he adapted a bicycle to cater for his wooden leg. At some point prior to 1909, most likely in his early teenage years, using a hand-made lathe driven by the waterwheel at the mill, Moore built a working model of a horizontal steam engine. The model won a competition in '' Model Engineer'' magazine; the prize, a book by Sir

Oliver Lodge Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge (12 June 1851 – 22 August 1940) was an English physicist whose investigations into electromagnetic radiation contributed to the development of Radio, radio communication. He identified electromagnetic radiation indepe ...

entitled ''Modern Views of Magnetism and Electricity'', awakened his interest in

. After Moore and his brother took over operation of the mill from their father, they used a generator coupled to the mill wheel to charge batteries to provide electrical power for local farmers, who were not yet connected to the mains supply; they also created machinery for them.

Home-made wireless station

In a garden shed and later in the loft of the mill, Moore built a rudimentary radio station consisting of a

coherer The coherer was a primitive form of radio signal detector used in the first radio receivers during the wireless telegraphy era at the beginning of the 20th century. Its use in radio was based on the 1890 findings of French physicist Édouard Bra ...

-based receiver and a spark-gap transmitter, also powered by batteries charged from the mill wheel. He strung copper wire across the

Sirhowy River The Sirhowy River () is a river in Wales and a tributary of the Ebbw River. Sources The Sirhowy River has its source on the slopes of Cefn Pyllau-duon above Tredegar. After flowing through Siôn-Sieffre's Reservoir it turns south through Tred ...

and uphill to a barn to create a large aerial system that enabled him to receive distant signals. In 1911, he intercepted the Italian government's

declaration of war A declaration of war is a formal act by which one state announces existing or impending war activity against another. The declaration is a performative speech act (or the public signing of a document) by an authorized party of a national gov ...

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

and was featured on the front page of the London newspaper the ''

Daily Sketch The ''Daily Sketch'' was a British national tabloid newspaper, founded in Manchester in 1909 by Sir Edward Hulton, 1st Baronet. The ''Sketch'' was Conservative in its politics and populist in its tone during its existence through all its ch ...

''. Using the spark-gap transmitter technology of the time, Moore together with his friend Richard Jenkins, an electrical engineer at the local coal mine, made what was probably the first use in Wales of amateur wireless for business purposes. Having set up a second transmitting and receiving station at Ty Llwyd farm, owned by Jenkins's father which was located approximately three and a half miles south of Gelligroes at Ynysddu, Moore received an order over the air for grain to be delivered from the mill to the farm.

RMS ''Titanic''

Early on 15 April 1912, over a distance of more than , Moore heard the distress signal in

morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

from ''Titanic'', one of the first uses of "

SOS SOS is a Morse code distress signal (), used internationally, originally established for maritime use. In formal notation SOS is written with an overscore line (), to indicate that the Morse code equivalents for the individual letters of "SOS" a ...

". He bicycled to the police station in

Caerphilly Caerphilly (, ; , ) is a town and community (Wales), community in Wales. It is situated at the southern end of the Rhymney Valley and separated from the Cardiff suburbs of Lisvane and Rhiwbina by Caerphilly Mountain. It is north of Cardiff an ...

, where his report was discounted; two days later, press reports confirmed the accuracy of his report, including that the ship's wireless operator had used "SOS" in addition to the older "

CQD CQD (transmitted in Morse code as ) is one of the first distress signals adopted for radio use. On 7 January 1904 the Marconi International Marine Communication Company issued "Circular 57", which specified that, for the company's in ...

" code for a ship in distress.

Wireless career

In summer 1912, the publicity surrounding Moore's hearing the ''Titanic''s distress signal led the then Monmouthshire Education Committee to offer him a scholarship to the British School of Telegraphy in London. After three months of study, he was advised by the principal there to enter for a Government examination in Wireless Telegraphy and Morse Code, in which he was successful.

Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquess of Marconi ( ; ; 25 April 1874 – 20 July 1937) was an Italian electrical engineer, inventor, and politician known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegraphy, wireless tel ...

, the wireless pioneer, had predicted a range of above for wireless reception, which Moore had greatly exceeded. After a local resident wrote to him concerning Moore, Marconi visited him and offered him a position as a draughtsman at the

. Appointed in 1914 to the Ship Equipment Department, he worked for Marconi's companies for the rest of his career. During the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Moore became a technician in "special Admiralty fittings", working on the clandestinely armed

Q-ship Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, decoy vessels, special service ships, or mystery ships, were heavily armed merchantman, armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. This gave Q-ships the c ...

s and designing and supervising the installation of wireless equipment on the Invincible-class

battlecruiser The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of att ...

s HMS ''Invincible'' and HMS ''Inflexible'' to enable them to communicate with Britain on their mission to the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

. He later became assistant to Captain

H.J. Round Captain Henry Joseph Round (2 June 1881 – 17 August 1966) was an English engineer and one of the early pioneers of radio. He was the first to report the observation of electroluminescence from a solid state diode, leading to the discovery of ...

and worked with him on the further development of the

thermionic valve Thermionic emission is the liberation of charged particles from a hot electrode whose thermal energy gives some particles enough kinetic energy to escape the material's surface. The particles, sometimes called ''thermions'' in early literature, ar ...

. At war's end, he was transferred to

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

, where he headed the newly formed Ship Equipment Department. In 1923, he was transferred to the Marconi International Marine Communication Company and appointed manager at

Avonmouth Avonmouth ( ) is a port and outer suburb of Bristol, England, on the north bank of the mouth of the River Avon and the eastern shore of the Severn Estuary. Part of the Port of Bristol, Avonmouth Docks is important to the region's maritime eco ...

, where he remained until his retirement in 1947. In 1922 he patented an early form of

; during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, his sonar work was instrumental in helping Allied ships avoid German

U-boat U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...

s in the North Atlantic.

Later life and death

Soon after his retirement, Moore developed

leukaemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia; pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and produce high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or '' ...

; he moved to

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

to recuperate, but six months later returned to England, where he died in a convalescent home in

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

on 20 January 1949.

Legacy

Moore inspired local wireless enthusiasts to create in 1927 the Blackwood Transmitters Club, later the Blackwood Amateur Radio Society. The Artie Moore Amateur Radio and Historical Preservation Society are creating an Artie Moore archive and periodically transmit from Gelligroes Mill with the

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency radio spectrum, spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emer ...

callsign MW0MNX, based on Moore's MNX.