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Primitive electrical telegraphic apparatus had been developed during
the 18th and early 19th century by the likes of Baron Pawel Schilling
and Hans Christian Orsted. The pace of invention quickened in the
1830s with Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction and
the work of Samuel Morse in the US, Edward Davy in London and Karl
Gauss and Wilhelm Weber in Germany. Wheatstone collaborated closely
with William Fothergill Cooke to submit the first patent for a practical
telegraph in 1837, the so-called 'five-needle telegraph'. Its functionality
was demonstrated in an experiment to the directors of the London-Birmingham
Railway and in a line laid alongside the Great Western Railway from
Paddington to West Drayton and Slough. Wheatstone went on to refine
his invention with the important ABC telegraph of 1840 and the automatic
high speed telegraph of 1858 with its sensitive contact mechanism,
while he was one of the first to recognise the potential of a network
of submarine telegraphy cables in European and transatlantic waters.
Wheatstone's contribution to telegraphy undoubtedly lay in his eminently
practical designs suitable for industry and close working relationship
with the nascent railway industry and its pioneers including Brunel.
Both academic and businessman, Wheatstone possessed a genius for
original experimental insight coupled with pragmatic refinement
marketed in the interests of commercial improvement.
Wheatstone was in regular contact with the leading scientific minds
of the day in Britain, Europe and America, and was active at a time
when King's was a centre of excellence in the fields of physics
with arguably the first experimental laboratory in the country.
A rather diffident lecturer, Wheatstone called upon one of his most
learned friends, Michael Faraday, to deliver a number of his early
lectures to the Royal Institution. Wheatstone was anxious to popularise
international developments in science in translation and was an
enthusiastic exponent of the agreement of international units of
electrical measurement. Wheatstone died in France while on business
in 1875 and was commemorated by King's in the physical laboratories
that bore his name and the naming of the Wheatstone Chair of Physics.
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