Catalogue description Department of Scientific and Industrial Research: Radio Research Board

In November 1919 the Imperial Communications Committee of the Cabinet recommended the establishment of a research board in wireless telegraphy under the DSIR, and a Radio Research Board was set up in January 1920. Its functions were similar to those of the three co-ordinating research boards set up shortly afterwards and with which it was usually grouped. It provided for the interchange of information between the various government technical establishments on the special work which they undertook so as to prevent any duplication of work, though the board had no executive functions regarding that work; to arrange for communication of such information to interested parties outside the government service; and, in areas where research was not being carried out, to make the necessary arrangements to meet the requirements of government departments and others. Work was begun, mainly as part of the programme of the board, at the National Physical Laboratory, in universities, by Meteorological Office staff at Aldershot, and on an Admiralty site at Slough. When the other co-ordinating boards were disbanded the Radio Research Board, though relieved of its formal responsibilities as a co-ordinating body, continued in being with its scientific functions and membership virtually unchanged. In 1933 the staff directly controlled by the department, then employed principally at Teddington and Slough, were united administratively to form a new Radio Department (later Division) of the National Physical Laboratory. During the 1930s the work sponsored by the board was carried out mainly by that laboratory.

In 1946 the Radio Research Board drew up a research programme and recommended that a new and separate radio research station be created to carry it out, and that a director of radio research should be appointed. It was decided to create a separate Radio Research Organisation to absorb and develop the work of the National Physical Laboratory Radio Division, and the superintendent of the division was appointed director of radio research. Also in 1946 the board took over from the Ministry of Supply ultra short wave research and the ministry's Ultra Short Wave Panel was reconstituted as the Tropospheric Committee of the board; in January 1947 it also took over responsibility for generic work on radio conducted at that ministry's Telecommunications Research Establishment. Work continued to be conducted there and at the National Physical Laboratory until the new Radio Research Station was opened at Slough in June 1957. The board continued to advise on the work of the station until it was transferred to the Science Research Council in 1965 and renamed the Radio and Space Research Station; the board was then dissolved. The station's work involved the study of radio waves, standards of measurement of physical quantities important in radio communication, and space research.