Joseph Poliakoff

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Lazarevich and the family name is Poliakoff.

Joseph Poliakoff
Иосиф Поляков
Born
Iosif Lazarevich Polyakov

24 April 1873[1]
Kremenchuk, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire
Died24 November 1959 (aged 86)[2]
London, England
OccupationsTelephone and sound Engineer and Inventor
Known forFounder of Multitone Electronics
SpouseFlora Shabbat
ChildrenAlexander Poliakoff
RelativesSir Martyn Poliakoff (grandson)
Stephen Poliakoff (grandson)

Joseph Lazarevich Poliakoff (Russian: Ио́сиф Ла́заревич Поляко́в; 24 April 1873 – 24 November 1959) was a Russian-born British telephone and sound engineer and inventor, particularly of hearing aids.[3]

Poliakoff was a Russian Jew who experienced first-hand the communist revolution in Russia from the family's Moscow flat across from the Kremlin.[4] Near starvation after the revolution, he was given a government job as a district telephone inspector from an admiring commissar and he helped build Moscow's first automatic telephone exchange.[4] He then fled with his family from the Soviet Union to the UK in 1924.[5][6]

Poliakoff was a renowned inventor of electrical devices[7] whose many inventions included a selenium photograph telephony shutter in 1899 (US patent 700,083, 13 May 1902),[8][9] which, along with electrical sound amplification, allowed for synchronized audio on film, the radio volume control, a magnetic induction loop that allowed hearing-impaired people to hear in auditoriums or theatres,[10][11] and the paging beeper.[12]

He also founded the Multitone Electric Company of London, England in 1931 that produced hearing aid devices,[13] with their most prestigious client being Winston Churchill.[12] Poliakoff was managing director until 1938.[3]

He married Flora Shabbat, a granddaughter of a textile millionaire.[14] His son, Alexander Poliakoff (1910–1996) was chairman of Multitone Electronics for over 40 years,[14] and his grandsons are the chemist Sir Martyn Poliakoff and the dramatist/director Stephen Poliakoff.

References

  1. ^ 1939 England and Wales Register
  2. ^ England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1966, 1973–1995
  3. ^ a b ProQuest (2 January 1960). "Obituary: Joseph Poliakoff". ProQuest. Retrieved 12 April 2017.
  4. ^ a b Poliakoff, Stephen (28 May 2008). "Ringside at the revolution". The Guardian.
  5. ^ Wroe, Nicholas (27 November 2009). "A life in drama: Stephen Poliakoff". The Guardian.
  6. ^ Information, Reed Business (12 January 1978). New Scientist. p. 97. Retrieved 5 December 2016. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
  7. ^ Periodic Videos (27 October 2016). "Geissler Tubes – Periodic Table of Videos" – via YouTube.
  8. ^ Western Electrician. 1902. p. 382. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  9. ^ The Electrical World and Engineer. 1901. p. 299. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  10. ^ "Induction Loops Around the World Where are we? – Part I – Robert Traynor – Hearing International". Hearinghealthmatters.org. 29 November 2011. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  11. ^ "Patent US2252641 – Method of and apparatus for the transmission of speech and other sounds – Google Patents". Google.com. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  12. ^ a b Garvey, Alison (9 May 2011). "Marketing Content Company: Multitone, the inventor of the first paging system celebrates its 80th birthday today". Mccinternational.blogspot.com. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  13. ^ "History of T-Coils—General Information". Hearingaidmuseum.com. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  14. ^ a b Jeanne Vronskaya (30 July 1996). "Obituary: Alexander Poliakoff". The Independent. Archived from the original on 17 June 2022. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
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