While the activities of Guglielmo Marconi are well documented, few know that Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Company visited the island of Borkum at the end of 1899 to install the first official wireless service in Germany in the island’s lighthouse, and then on the 'Borkumriff' lightship in early 1900.

A very early  picture of the "Little Lighthouse" on Borkum Island

At the same time, the first commercial installation on a merchant ship took place, when the German liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was fitted with untuned Marconi equipment. This was the fastest ship of its day, and it sent its first 'Marconigram‘ to the company at Bremerhaven, via Borkum Island, on 28 February 1900.

The German Imperial PTT managed the service and opened these first coast stations for public correspondence on 15 May 1900, with the stations operated by the lighthouse keepers and the captain and mate of the lightship.

Between 1900 and 1904, paid telegrams via both stations totalled about 5000. Both stations, lightship and lighthouse, normally made traffic with passing ships by flag signals. Ships who wanted their presence advised to shore hoisted the signals QP or QR.

All telegrams went via the Telegraphenamt Emden, which was the terminal for German submarine cables. By 1913, there were 350 officers employed here, handling around 18000 telegrams a day, totalling over 5,6 million in that year. Successive ‚Borkumriff‘ lightships were official coast stations from 1900 till 28 February 1975, coincidentally exactly 75 years from the date of the first official telegram sent by the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.

Readers may be interested in a 240-page book in German language, Feuerschiff BORKUMRIFF by Gregor Ulsamer, DL1BFE, (ISBN 300014964-3). Sub-titled, "The fascinating history of communications between ship and shore";  it brings together the histories of lighthouses, lightships, signal stations, carrier pigeons, the German lifeboat organisation, weather forecasting naval and submarine services, submarine telegraphy and the development of wireless communications – all through the story of wireless stations on Borkum Island lighthouse and the Borkumriff lightship.

The book has 190 illustrations. Copies of the book, complete with an imprint from the original ship’s stamp of the last manned ‚Borkumriff‘ lightship, can be obtained direct from the author, G. Ulsamer, Steinstr. 4, D-26757 Borkum, Germany,  price Euro 21,90.