John Logie Baird's grandson has paid tribute to him on the 125th anniversary of the Scot's birth over his achievement in inventing the television.

Baird was the first person to publicly demonstrate that TV signals could be sent long-distances at the Central Hotel in Glasgow on January 26 1926.

Canadian born grandson Iain Logie Baird said it was his innovation in achieving what no major company had done in inventing the device which is now used in billions of homes around the world.

Mr Logie Baird, the curator at the National Media Museum in Bradford, West Yorkshire who retains his famous relative's fascination with TV, explained how Logie Baird managed to stay at the forefront of innovation, leaving much larger companies in his wake.

He said: "The cost of developing electronic television was insurmountable by anyone except the wealthiest corporations. So for someone to do it first, they would have to be a major radio corporation or somebody who was very innovative with the mechanical techniques and that was my grandfather."

His grandfather developed high-definition and 3D television in colour and made significant progress with fibre-optics, infra-red scanning and fast facsimile transmission during the Second World War.

Alan Mills, assistant curator for communications at the National Museum of Scotland, added that Helensburgh-born Logie Baird did not have a lot of money. He added: "He would use anything he could get his hands on: parts of bikes, parts of cars; all sorts of things were used.

"He was an extraordinary man. There have been very few inventors like him. He could do so much with so little.. He almost single-handedly invented the TV industry. He dragged everyone else behind him."

During his first-ever demonstration, Logie Baird transmitted the world's first long-distance TV pictures from Glasgow to London.