Sir Isaac Shoenberg was an electronic engineer born in Russia who was best known for his role in history of television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

.

Shoenberg was born in Pinsk

Pinsk

Pinsk , a town in Belarus, in the Polesia region, traversed by the river Pripyat, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers. The region was known as the Marsh of Pinsk. It is a fertile agricultural center. It lies south-west of Minsk. The population is about 130,000...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 (now Belarus

Belarus

Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...

) and studied mathematics, mechanical engineering, and electricity in St. Petersburg.

In 1905 Shoenberg was employed to design and instal the earliest wireless stations in Russia. However, in 1914, Shoenberg decided to emigrate to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and join the Marconi Wireless and Telegraph Company.

Shoenberg was later general manager of the Columbia Graphaphone Company. He remained with the company through the merger that became EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

 in the early 1930s making significant contributions to the development of television. He was Alan Blumlein

Alan Blumlein

Alan Dower Blumlein was a British electronics engineer, notable for his many inventions in telecommunications, sound recording, stereo, television and radar...

's supervisor at the central research labs at Hayes during the time Blumlein invented stereo recording.

Shoenberg was knighted in 1962.

With his wife Esther, Shoenberg was the father of British physicist David Shoenberg

David Shoenberg

David Shoenberg, MBE FRS, was a British physicist.David Shoenberg was born in 1911, the son of Isaac Shoenberg. Isaac, born in Pinsk in Russia was the principal inventor of the high-definition television system used by the BBC for the world’s first high-definition television broadcast from...

, gynaecologist Rosalie Shoenberg Taylor, psychiatrist Elisabeth Shoenberg, Mark Shoenberg and Alec Shoenberg.

In fiction

Schoenberg was portrayed by Leon Lissek

Leon Lissek

Leon Lissek is an actor originated from Australia who primarily does work in England. He has appeared in over 80 films in his career, which started with Marat/Sade...

 in the 1986 TV movie "The Fools on the Hill" by Jack Rosenthal

Jack Rosenthal

Jack Morris Rosenthal CBE was an English playwright, who wrote 129 early episodes of the ITV soap opera Coronation Street and over 150 screenplays, including original TV plays, feature films, and adaptations.-Biography:...

 which dramatised the events around the first broadcasts by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

from Alexandra Palace in 1936.