At first, I was interested in the topic of black and white television sets, but I was astounded by the fact that you need to have some sort of “license” to operate a television set in England. That part of the story is mind-boggling. How long has this been going on? How does the government know if you have one or not?
If we had not already declared our independence in 1776, I could imagine the colonies having a Boston “TV” Party, tossing all of our black and white sets, and our color sets, into the harbor along with the tea.
It's been going on ever since it was introduced by the Conservative government in 1922 - originally for radio, and the same system subsequently transferred to TV.
At the time of its introduction, it didn't seem strange at all. Some means had to be found to fund the new medium's infrastructure, and advertising wasn't considered. The obvious model was the then still new medium of the telephone. You paid an annual fee to the General Post Office to rent a phone line. It seemed logical to charge a similar fee to rent the 'wireless' connection to a radio.
Despite the huge technical, cultural and economic changes in broadcasting since that time, regular reviews of the system have failed to come up with an alternative which doesn't seem to have just as many disadvantages: so the conclusion has always been, to misquote Churchill, 'it's the worst system for funding a public broadcasting service except all the others.'
The separate radio licence was abolished in the 1970s.