BBC EMPLOYEE NUMBER 1 - This Volume of Signatures is Presented to R F Palmer by his Colleagues at the BBC

Presentation album to the the first person ever employed by Sir John Reith at the British Broadcasting Company - later the BBC - Reginald ‘Rex’ Palmer (1896-1972) the ‘Golden Voice of Wireless’ who left the BBC in 1929 for the Gramophone Company- as marked by this gift.

Small black straight grain morocco binding, carefully repaired, with reinforcement to the inner hinges. The signatures follow a calligraphic title page and are written directly onto both sides of 6 thick card leaves; all edges gilt. Following John Reith’s oblique signature at the top of the first leaf are the autographs and occasionally brief sentiments of many luminaries from the first decade of British brodcasting. They include Roger Eckersley (1st Chief Engineer), R E Lindsay Wellington (Director of Sound), Hilda Matheson (pioneering radio talks producer), John Nourse Heygate (novelist) Gerald Cock (1st Director of BBC TV), Elise Sprott (Women’s Press Representative), Ella Fitzgerald (producer of Woman’s Hour), William Ewart Gladstone Murray, Charles Draper (musician) Val Gielgud (actor and pioneer of radio drama), Cecil A Roberts, Dulcima Glasby (drama producer), Sidonie Goossens (harpist). Women make up around a relatively high quarter or so of the signatures. The book’s recipient Reginald Palmer was the first London Station Director of the BBC’s 2LO and presented children’s programmes, going on to work for HMV and narrating films for Pathe.