Valve amplifier thermionic valves. The simplest valve was invented by John Ambrose Fleming while working for the Marconi Company in London in 1904 and named the diode, as it had two electrodes. The diode conducted electricity in one direction only and was used as a radio detector and a rectifier. In 1906 Lee De Forest added a third electrode and invented the first electronic amplifying device, the triode, which he named the "Audion". This additional "control grid" modulates the current that flows between cathode and anode. The relationship between current flow and plate and grid voltage is often represented as a series
John Snell (electrical engineer) Central Electricity Board was established, the national grid created and the supply of electricity standardised. He was made GBE in 1925. In 1928 he began introducing major new electricity power systems in the West of England with his friend and then colleague, Dr John A. Purves. He was awarded the Faraday Medal for 1938 by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (now the Institution of Engineering and Technology). He died after an operation at the London Clinic in 1938. He had married Annie Glendenning Quick of Biscovey, Cornwall, with whom he had at least one son. John Snell (electrical engineer) Sir