Stephen Williams

Who was Stephen Williams?

Stephen Williams was a British radio announcer, presenter and producer, and a pioneer of commercial radio for the UK.

Born in London and educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, as a young boy he was already, in his words, a "wireless fanatic": he said, "I was able to listen proudly to the debut of the BBC on 14 November 1922, and from the moment I heard the announcer say "This is 2LO calling, 2LO, the London station of the British Broadcasting Company", I was seized with an ambition to have a job like his."

During his university vacation in 1928 he got a job as announcer on a "broadcasting yacht" sponsored by the Daily Mail newspaper group. This vessel went round the coast of Britain, transmitting music on records and advertisements for the Daily Mail, from just outside territorial waters, an early precursor of the 1960s "pirate radio" ships.

The broadcasting yacht had been the idea of the paper's Circulation and Publicity Director, Valentine Smith, who soon transferred to the Sunday Referee, where he gave Williams a job with the idea of involving the paper in commercial broadcasting. They were soon in contact with Captain Leonard F. Plugge, who was starting the International Broadcasting Company.