The Introduction of the Electric Telegraph in Britain, a Reappraisal of the Work of Cooke and Wheatstone

Abstract

William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented the first practical electric telegraph system in 1837. Demonstrations using multi-needle instruments were given to the Directors of the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) at Euston and Camden Town later in 1837 but the electric telegraph was not adopted by the L&BR at this time. In 1839 Cooke installed a demonstration line alongside the Great Western Railway (GWR) between London Paddington and West Drayton using four-needle instruments. Although trials were successful the telegraph line was afterwards little used by the GWR and was abandoned within a year or so. Precise details of the equipment used on these demonstrations have always been unclear, leading to ambiguity in the identification of surviving instruments preserved in the Science Museum, London, and elsewhere. Recent close examination of these along with a new interpretation of contemporary documents shows that the widely held belief that five-needle instruments were used on the 1839 GWR installation is incorrect. It is also argued that the small five-needle instrument displayed at the Science Museum, London, and two similar specimens held elsewhere, are not the original instruments demonstrated in 1837 but working models made for a patent infringement trial in 1850. Conversely another five-needle dial owned by King's College London and on loan to the Science Museum can now be identified as almost certainly one of the original 1837 instruments.