He may have an airport named after him and have been the recipient of awards from a Nobel Prize to a host of honorary doctorates, but given that he ‘invented the radio’, Guglielmo Marconi is hardly a household name. What’s more, despite being a prolific inventor and scientist, Marconi’s political and personal lives were far from dull. From attending the Versailles Peace Conference in Paris in 1919, to joining the Italian Fascist party in 1923; changing his religion, to having Mussolini as best man at his second wedding, he lived a colourful life.

At just 22 years old, Marconi patented wireless telegraphy. He sent the first wireless waves over open sea successfully and, with further developments to his own work, the list of patents under his name continued to grow. Worldwide recognition came when, aged 27, he performed the first successful transatlantic wireless transmission, and in 1909, he received the Nobel Prize for Physics.

Called to service with the Italian army and navy, he refined his wireless technology tirelessly. His name then became that of a benefactor of humanity when, in 1912, the transmission of an SOS message led to the rescue of approximately 700 of the 2300 people on board the Titanic.

But Marconi wasn’t all innocence and charity: within a few years, the scandals were erupting like volcanic acne. Rumours flew regarding assistance given to his company by British ministers who, as shareholders, would have benefited financially from the passage of a bill setting up the British Imperial Wireless Network. The severity of this meant that Asquith’s government was almost brought down. Further outrage surrounded Marconi’s originality: having built on the discoveries of other scientists (as well patenting some suspiciously unoriginal developments under his own name), legal challenges were raised in several countries, the results of which included the US Supreme Court overturning most of his patents.

Not one to dwell on the airing of his dirty laundry, Marconi changed religion and remarried. Having had two daughters and a son with his first wife, a descendent of Irish royalty, he moved on to the second, a well-connected Italian noblewoman. Through her, he received the title of Marchese in 1929. Given that Mussolini had been his best man, it is perhaps unsurprising that he was also appointed President of the Royal Academy of Italy, part of the Fascist Grand Council, and that his death was met with an Italian state funeral.

He has had some recognition, though; a worldwide radio wave silence in his tribute when he died, and the release of a commemorative British two pound coin in 2001. His scientific contributions, and the developments which have stemmed from them, should certainly be rated highly: without them, our lifestyles would be unimaginably different. anna harper