The man who became a local celebrity for owning a TV
In the 1930s, Englishman George Boar bought one of the first television sets, which cost about as much as a family car. His purchase shows how expensive and hard to access early British television was.
George Boar, an Englishman, bought a television set in the 1930s, when TV was a novelty in Britain, and he later became a local celebrity. His purchase shows how costly early British television was. In 1937 the set cost 120 guineas, worth around £7,700 in 2026 money. At the time the BBC, Britain's public broadcaster, had only one television transmitter, at Alexandra Palace in North London.
A price like a family car
Boar is described in the book Magic Rays of Light, which tells the story of early British television, by Prof Wyver of the University of Westminster. The professor says that in the 1930s viewers were mostly upper middle-class, because a television cost at least the same as a family car.
A mast in the garden
Boar also paid £70, roughly £4,300 today, for a 60ft (18m) mast. It was set in two tons of concrete in his garden. It was needed to ensure reception from the BBC's only television transmitter at Alexandra Palace.
A big set with a small screen
Julie Thompson of the Long Melford Historical and Archaeological Society points to the size of the set itself. It stood 126cm high and a metre wide, in an art deco-style wooden case. The picture, however, measured only 14in, or 35cm.
