History of the College

Charles Wheatstone

Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875) was Professor of Experimental Philosophy at King's College London. The self-taught son of a London-based musical instrument maker, Wheatstone conducted early experiments into acoustics and the transmission of sound. His first paper on the subject was published in 1823. Having inherited the family business, he went on to invent numerous new musical instruments. Famously, he patented the concertina in 1829. He was fascinated by all aspects of physics, electricity, acoustics and optics, and in their application to industry.

He began studying electricity and electromagnetism around 1830, when his focus was in seeking to measure the velocity of electricity. He joined King's in 1834 and with the support of the Royal Society and the College Council laid down a circuit of copper wiring in the basement of the building to refine his experimental data. With his King's colleague, the chemist John Daniell, he sought new means of generating large quantities of electricity. During the later 1830s and early 1840s, they both developed designs of cell or battery and early magneto-induction devices. Wheatstone went on to patent a number of electric motor systems, including a pioneering early design of linear induction motor. He coined the term 'rheostat' for his design of variable resistance control. He also developed various measurement devices, the most famous being the so-called 'Wheatstone Bridge' to calculate electrical resistance, variants of which are still in use today.

Perhaps Wheatstone's two key achievements whilst at King's were in inventing the stereoscope and perfecting a practical version of the telegraph. Stereoscopy - creating the illusion of 3D from flat images - preceded the invention of photography. Wheatstone was quick to spot the potential of the new medium, however, after having produced the first working model and coining the term 'stereoscope' at a public unveiling at the Royal Society in 1838. The device soon became popular with Victorian families with the invention of photography and the mass-production of stereoscopic picture cards depicting life-like images in realistic situations.