Sir Charles Wheatstone, F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.
1802–1875
Who, together with Sir W. F. Cooke, introduced and carried out practical electric telegraphy, was the son of Mr. Wheatstone, of Gloucester, at which place he was born.
He was educated at a private school and brought up to the business of making musical instruments, which turned his attention to acoustics.
He published his first work in 1823, “New Experiments in Sound,” and having studied Young’s theory of light, the results of his investigations were communicated to the Royal Society through Faraday, in 1833.
In the following year he was appointed Professor of Experimental Philosophy, at King’s College, London.
He was made F. R. S. in 1836, and two years later described the stereoscope, which he had invented, in a paper which he read before the Society.
Mr. Cooke (later Sir W. F. Cooke), was introduced to Professor Wheatstone, and they decided to unite their efforts to introduce the use of the telegraph on a large scale in England.
They took out their first patent for the electric telegraph laid on the Blackwall Railway in 1837.
Wheatstone received the Royal Medal in 1840, the Copley Medal in 1843, was one of the Jurors at the Paris Exhibition (1855), when he received the decoration of the Legion of Honor, and was knighted in 1868.