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FESSENDEN, Reginald Aubrey, teacher, electrical engineer, university professor, and inventor; b. 6 Oct. 1866 in East Bolton (Austin), Lower Canada, eldest son of Elisha Joseph Fessenden, a Church of England deacon, and Clementina Trenholme*; m. 21 Sept. 1890 Helen May Trott (d. 1941) in New York City, and they had one son; d. 22 July 1932 in Hamilton, Bermuda.

On his father’s side Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was descended from New England Puritans and United Empire Loyalists. His mother, later a prominent member of the imperialist movement, was the granddaughter of immigrants from Yorkshire, England. In 1867 his father was ordained to the priesthood, and afterwards the family moved regularly as Elisha Fessenden assumed pastorates in Bolton Centre, Que., and in Albion, Fergus, and Clifton (Niagara Falls), Ont., before finally settling in Chippawa, near Niagara Falls. Later in life Reginald would attribute his success as an inventor to his ancestry and his Canadian upbringing. Convinced that an aptitude for invention was both racially determined a

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Biography of Reginald Aubrey Fessenden

Back: IEEE Canada > Awards > Major Awards for Members

IEEE Canada remembers, through the Reginald Aubrey Fessenden Silver Medal, his contributions to the development of wireless communications. See the list of recipients of the R.A. Fessenden Award.

Biography

Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (1866-1932) has often been called the unsung hero of the telecommunications industry. Born in East Bolton, Quebec, in 1866, he received his education in Canada, but left at an early age to work with Thomas Alva Edison and later George Westinghouse in the United States. He was soon recognized as a brilliant researcher and inventor, became a professor of electrical engineering at Purdue University from 1892-1893 and at Western University of Pennsylvania (now University of Pittsburgh) from 1893-1900. Like many others of his day, he was fascinated with the theories expounded by Heinrich Hertz and pondered the potential of their application to wireless communication. He developed an entirely new system of wireless transmission distinct from and based on

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Born in Canada, Reginald Aubrey Fessenden was a premiere radio pioneer and considered by many to be the “Father of Voice Radio.” During his life, he unleashed the potential of several concepts and applied them in ways that are taken for granted in the present-day. In pursuit of a successful system to transmit and receive the sound of voice using continuous waves, Fessenden found himself experimenting on Roanoke Island and the surrounding region for 18 months from 1901 to 1902.

Working as contractor for the U.S. Weather Bureau, Professor Fessenden’s stage of research by this time involved constructing an efficient continuous-wave transmitter and also improving signal reception with a continuous wave-detector. Based on Roanoke Island, he erected 50-foot tall radio towers at Weir Point on Roanoke Island, Cape Hatteras, and Cape Henry to conduct his research.

By March of 1902, Fessenden had demonstrated a successful transmission and reception of voice with the devices he had created. A 127-word voice message was sent from the Cape Hatteras transmitter tower to Roanoke Island. As