The following is from comments posted on the
AudioKarma discussion
group. If anyone has any additional information, please send it to us:
I came across a book titled "The 1950s" by Edith Horsley, Produced by
Bison Books Limited,
London, England, Published by Quality Books Inc.
This book is written apparently in American English (e.g. "color," not "colour"),
but has a great deal (perhaps majority) of English events as well as
American and international.
On page 91, in the 1953 chapter, it has a couple of color illustrations
attributed to Radio Times Hulton Picture Library. These photos purport
to show 1) a cameraman and subject experimenting with color TV in 1953;
2) a family watching an experimental color set (no date).
The studio camera is too
compact to be a simultaneous color camera of that time, but could
conceivably be a field-sequential camera.
The receiver is probably a
projection type, with a small color wheel.



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This site discusses the BBC television coverage of the 1953 coronation.
A single paragraph is devoted to the experimental closed circuit color
broadcast. I agree that it was possibly a field sequential system.
Here's the paragraph:
"As befits the coming generation, two hundred children saw the
Coronation procession by the TV of the future - in colour. They were at
the Great Ormand Street Hospital in London. By closed-circuit they
received pictures from three TV colour cameras overlooking Parliament
Square"
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It's amazing how little info there is on this colour broadcast. Probably
lost in the shadow of the BBC's overwelming b&w coverage of the event.
Here's an excerpt from
a site that mentions a PYE ( A British
electronics co.) and American company connection?
"1953..... the FIRST colour television programme was shown when the
coronation of Queen Elizabeth 11 was transmitted. It was the result of
an experiment between Pye of Cambridge and an American company. The
vivid reds and dark blues worn by the Canadian Mounties and Royal
Marines enthralled the children of the Great Ormond Street hospital who
were watching this FIRST colour television broadcast."
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This
recollection from a cameraman who worked the 1953
coronation broadcast:
"Whilst 20 million viewers watched the transmission in
black and white, 150 children and staff of the Hospital
for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street watched part of
the procession in colour. Pye of Cambridge were given
permission to set up three colour cameras on the roof of
the Foreign Office, and by using a portable transmitter
beamed the signal to Ormond Street to display colour
pictures on two 20" sets. Twenty years later it would be
standard practice for major OBs to be in colour. and
today it is common place to deploy 20 to 25 cameras just
for one programme 'Match of the Day.'"