KNOX'S RADIO HOAX OF 1926 KNOX (Ronald Arbuthnott, 1888-1957, Roman Catholic Priest, Translator of the Bible)

Fine Typed Letter Signed To "Dear Mr Frewer", apologising for having "neglected you for so long, but I hope you will excuse me, because my correspondence has been a nightmare this week past ..." sending a signature and saying that it "was extremely kind of you to write as you did about the wireless indiscretion. It is very nice to know that the skit gave the amusement it was meant to in some quarters in return for giving the alarm it was not meant to in others ...", 1 side 4to., St Edmund's College, Ware, 1st February

Knox resigned as Anglican chaplain in 1917 when he became a Roman Catholic. In response to Knox's conversion to Roman Catholicism, his father cut him out of his will. In 1918 he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest and in 1919 joined the staff of St Edmund's College, Ware, Hertfordshire, remaining there until 1926. He explained his spiritual journey in two privately printed books, Apologia (1917) and A Spiritual Aeneid (1918).
In January 1926, for one of his regular BBC Radio programmes, Knox broadcast a simulated live report of revolution sweeping across London, entitled Broadcasting from the Barricades. In addition, to live reports of several people, including a government minister, being lynched, his broadcast mixed supposed band music from the Savoy Hotel with the hotel's purported destruction by trench mortars. The Houses of Parliament and the clock tower were also said to have been flattened. Because the broadcast occurred on a snowy weekend, much of the United Kingdom was unable to get the newspapers until days later. The lack of newspapers caused a minor panic, as it was believed that the events in London caused this. Four months later there was considerable public disorder during the General Strike, so the possibility of a revolution had been realistic at the time.

Item Date:  1926

Stock No:  39759      £275

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