HOOKE, Sir LIONEL GEORGE ALFRED (1895-1974), broadcasting pioneer, radio engineer and businessman, was born on 31 December 1895 at St Kilda, Melbourne, fourth child of Frank William Hooke, a tea merchant from England, and his Victorian-born wife Ethel Margaret, née Kelly. Educated at Brighton Grammar School, where he was a sergeant in the cadets and 'an ardent student of wireless telegraphy', Lionel joined the Marconi company as a marine wireless operator in 1913. In the following year Marconi merged its Australasian interests with those of the Telefunken company to form a new organization, Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd.

On Christmas Day 1914 Hooke sailed from Hobart as wireless operator on board the Aurora which carried the support party for Sir Ernest Shackleton's proposed crossing of the Antarctic continent. In March 1915 the ship was moored in McMurdo Sound for the winter. An ice-field formed around her. On 6 May it ...

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Australian Dictionary of Biography