Godfrey Isaacs

Godfrey Charles Isaacs (22 July 1866 – 17 April 1925) was an English businessman who served as the first Director of the British Broadcasting Company and as the long-time managing director of the Marconi Company.

Isaacs was born in Belsize Park, London, England to a prominent Anglo-Jewish family. Educated at the Leibniz University Hannover and Free University of Brussels he qualified as a mining engineer before entering his father's firm of fruit and ship brokers. In 1910, he was invited to become managing director of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company by its founder Guglielmo Marconi. as well as Herbert Samuel.

His previous employment required much travel in Europe and he was considered 'worldly' having been education at foreign universities and being fluent in several languages. He had many overseas contacts and was said to be very understanding of their customs. Marconi regarded him as a "brilliant business man and financier" with a "charm of manner" and "altogether an ideal chairman for such a company as Marconi's". This was a tongue-in-cheek remark as Marconi himself was company Chairman. At the time he joined the firm it had a severe cash shortage and wages were being paid late. So he immediately made an investment in the firm. Recalling that time Isaacs later wrote the company never paid a dividend and its shares were "unsaleable at ten or twelve shillings". However, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 was a turning point for maritime wireless and its shares reached £9 and 10 shillings. Marconi said, after Isaacs "with his strong and enterprising management, there was now enough money, and the prospects of more". For Marconi the appointment of Isaacs meant he no longer had to direct the firm's business and concentrated on research and development.

In a 2018 peer-reviewed paper entitled "Marconi Proposes: Why it's time to rethink the birth of the BBC" the media historian David Prosser from The University of Bristol used newly discovered material to show that the case for public service broadcasting was made by Godfrey Isaacs (then managing director of the Marconi Company) in a meeting at the General Post Office on 18 May 1922.

According to Prosser "The 39 members of the wireless trade invited to the GPO's headquarters near St Pauls in London, on 18 May 1922 were keenly aware that the future of a new industry rested on their shoulders and that failure might mean, as one participant noted, this 'whole delightful enterprise which fascinates everybody and which promises good business, will end in a fizzle and disappointment'. This meeting is one of the most significant events in the history of British broadcasting and it took place behind closed doors."

A transcript of the meeting was thought to be lost and although its outcome, the creation of the licence fee funded British Broadcasting Company (BBC) was clear, the deliberations were not known and an inaccurate assumption made that the Post Office had made the proposal.

"It is Godfrey Isaacs, the managing director of Marconi, who emerges from the pages of this transcript as the dominant force in the room. At Isaacs' suggestion, twenty companies indicated at the outset 'a desire to have licences". With broadcasting to be allowed in only eight cities, the challenges were evident during a lengthy discussion regarding mutual interference, transmitter power and how slots might be divided between the different broadcasting companies".

Of the wireless set manufacturers present at the meeting only one, Metropolitan Vickers whose parent was US firm Westinghouse disagreed with the proposal for a single non advertising-based entity, But Isaacs used his company's clout stating he didn't believe a 'transmitting station can be erected to work efficiently' without using Marconi patented technology, which he would only make available to his single scheme.

Prosser concludes: "We can identify the exact moment the BBC was conceived. It was not the Post Office that proposed the BBC, but Godfrey Isaacs of Marconi."

Shortly after its creation in November 1922 Isaacs was made the first appointed director of the BBC and remained so until his death.

Recognition On 10 November 2021, a plaque in recognition of the life and work of Isaacs was unveiled at the site of the Marconi works in Chelmsford, Essex.

Personal life and family

He married Léa Constance Felicie Valentine Seta (1874–1956), a French opera singer with the professional surname Perelli on 27 December 1892 in Paris and they had two sons, Marcel Godfrey (born 1893) and Dennys Godfrey (born 1896). Marcel Godfrey Isaacs married Marie Louise Cattier, daughter of prominent Belgian banker and philanthropist Félicien Cattier, who was also his business associate.

In 1913, in the wake of the Marconi shares scandal Godfrey Issacs successfully sued Cecil Chesterton for criminal libel for remarks considered antisemitic. This led to a rift between Isaacs and his brothers.

Isaacs died shortly after suffering from a stroke. He was buried at Chertsey Cemetery in Runnymede, Surrey. The fact he was buried in Catholic ceremony came as surprise to his family since Isaacs had never shown interest in Catholicism, though it appeared that his wife, who was Catholic, had him baptised on his death bed.