New exhibition celebrates centenary of Rugby Radio Station

100 Years of Rugby Radio opens next month at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, celebrating the centenary of the station and featuring a treasure trove of items from the museum's social history collection.

Rugby Radio Station became operational on 1 January 1926, with its GBR transmitter - then the most powerful radio transmitter in the world - sending news broadcasts and telegrams across the globe.

A year later, the station started transmitting the iconic time signal 'pips' from the Royal Greenwich Observatory and launched the world's first transatlantic telephone service - with calls costing £15 for the first three minutes (the equivalent of more than £600 today).

During the Second World War, Rugby Radio Station operatives supported the RAF during bombing missions in Germany before the post-war telecommunications boom saw the radio station expand in the 1950s, with its total of 57 transmitters making it the biggest station in the world.

Technological advances led to the station's GBR transmitter being decommissioned in 2003 and four years later all transmissions from the station came to an end.

Now home to Houlton - named after the town in Maine, USA, which received the first transatlantic telephone call - the developers incorporated Rugby Radio Station's grade II listed 'C' building into Houlton School.

100 Years of Rugby Radio opens at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum's local history gallery on Wednesday 15 April, featuring apparatus, models and images from the station dating back to 1926.

Cllr Maggie O'Rourke, Rugby Borough Council portfolio holder for partnerships and wellbeing, said: "Everyone of a certain vintage remembers the radio station's 250m masts dominating the skyline as you returned to Rugby via the M1 or the West Coast Mainline, a reassuring reminder you were nearly home.

"But 100 years ago Rugby Radio Station placed the borough at the heart of telecommunications across the world, pioneering the first commercial, transatlantic telephone service and communicating vital information to Royal Navy ships around the globe."

Cllr Neil Sandison, Rugby Borough Council's Liberal Democrat group spokesperson for partnerships and wellbeing, added: "This new exhibition gives visitors the chance to discover the rich history of Rugby Radio Station and find out how Rugby once ruled the airwaves."

100 Years of Rugby Radio runs until Saturday 3 October.

For more information about exhibitions and events at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, visit www.ragm.co.uk