For several years now I've been seeing folks selling ads snipped from magazines and newspapers. It's a little problematic to have the content removed from it's source material. The same complaint exists in archeology. The artifact is interesting by itself, but without context it loses some meaning. I don't know where this ad came from originally. But I have found others similar to it from the 1930s. I found a google site that fills in some of the blanks. That website reports that the college was established in 1920 and operated until 1971, which disagrees slightly with other sources.
Even more interesting is that the school, which more likely operated from 1923 to 1973, has it's own alumni facebook page. That in turn revealed that a few alum even published books! But inexplicably many students, even those writing about the town of Colwyn Bay ignore the topic. Many touch on it briefly, the book A-Z of Colwyn Bay by Graham Roberts has a few sentences it under the section about Coleg Llandrillo Menai. The Colwyn Bay heritage website at least has some great pictures.
In Wireless world, September, 1922 there were a few ads for wireless radio supplies sold by the Wireless College. A college-operated mail order business is a little unusual, but typically what they're selling is diplomas. This was a whole host of wireless equipment: valves, enclosures, tubes, batteries, insulators etc. The book Wireless, the Crucial Decade: History of the British Wireless Industry by Gordon Bussey briefly mentions these Colwyn Bay Wireless College wireless kits but not a word about the school. The book Colwyn Bay at War From Old Photographs by Graham Roberts does address the school at some length.
"The college building was at the far end of the East Parade; the college and the Parade have now been demolished to make way for the A55 and a plaque in a car park now commemorates the work done by the College in training radio operators..."
The Roberts book picks a different year for it's start, dating it
back to 1918 as founded by Gordon Scott Whale as the "North Wales
Wireless College" but that he moved it to Colwyn Bay in 1923.Whale converted an 8-gabled 3 story home called "Olive House" into the college. Gordon was born in 1893 so he would have been 25 years old when he
founded the school and 30 years old when it moved to Colwyn Bay.
Gordon Whale joined the IRE (Institute of Radio Engineers) in 1926, and had previously trained at the Direct Spanish Telegraph Company and worked for Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Company. A 1937 article also added the acronyms AMIRE, and MAAAS to his resume, that specifies Associate Member, Institution of Electrical Engineers. MAAS probably stands for Member, American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. Though that makes little sense for a British private school teacher, it was founded in 1780 and is possible. Radio Pictorial magazine wrote up his two colleges in 1938 and added a third acronym: FRSA, which is Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
I've not seen a book with specified which Marconi station Whale worked at. The Journal of the Royal Society of Arts mentioned in his obituary that he worked at both the Wales and Ireland stations. The station in Wales was Carnavon. Construction started in 1914, and it sent it's first messages in 1918. It was located on a mountain, Cefn Du, and used the call letters MUU. But in Ireland Marconi operated three different stations, of them Clifden seems the most likely, though Crookhaven was open as early as 1902.
As the school grew, Whale hired Charles Oliver as a tutor in 1926, then Harry Nelson in 1930. Volume 15, 1925, of the magazine "The Child" contained a list of Schools and educational institutions which included some extra details on Colwyn Bay and a short description:
"The North Bay Wireless College, Colwyn Bay, Students 15-23 years of age rapidly trained for lucrative appointments in the Wireless and Cable Services. College Stands in 5½ acres of grounds overlooking sea, and is 400 feet above sea level..."
Somehow in 1937 Gordon opened a second wireless college in Calmore, Southhampton. The building was originally called Loperwood Manor. It planned for 50 students on a 16 acre property. By 1938 it had expanded to handle 100 students and they bought another 40 acres of land. It closed in 1940 due to the hostilities of WWI. Being on the English Channel, 30,000 bombs were dropped on Southhampton just in 1940.
In 1937 Practical Wireless Magazine wrote an article about a visit by Sir Ambrose Fleming. Yes, the one who invented the vacuum tube. That article is the only image of Whale I've found. Whale had retired in 1935 from Colwyn Bay, but returned in 1940 for the war effort. In 1944 The Electrician magazine reported that a group of privately owned British wireless schools had decided to form The National Association of Wireless Colleges. The chairman was B. G. Morton or the Manchester Wireless College and the honorary Secretary was Mr. Gordon Whale. Strangely I have never found another reference to the National Association of Wireless Colleges. Perhaps it was not at long lived as the Colwyn Bay Wireless College.
Harry Nelson retired in July 1966 after 36 years at the college. Gordon Scott Whale died that year at the age of 72. Wireless World noted in their obituary that Gordon died on January 9th onboard the RMS Andes. Some of their marketing from that year has survived which reads "Be well away when winter chills in January - March 1966." The retrofitted cruise liner went to Barbados that Spring. His son Neville had already succeeded him as principle of the college. Neville kept the school running another 7 years until it closed in 1973. The former college building was demolished for the A55 when it was split into dual lanes in the 1980s.