Lives of the electricians

by William T. Jeans

Early in 1840 Professor Wheatstone claimed as the result of experience that thirty signals could be conveniently made in a minute by this telegraph, and at the same time he stated that “having lately occupied myself in carrying into effect numerous improvements which had suggested themselves to me, I have, in conjunction with Mr. Cooke, who has turned his attention greatly to the same subject, obtained a new patent for a telegraph which I think will present very great advantages over the present one. It can be applied without entailing any additional expense by simply substituting new instruments for the old ones. This new instrument requires only a single pair of wires to effect all that the present one does with five; so that three independent telegraphs may be immediately placed on the line of the Great Western. It presents in the same place all the letters of the alphabet according to the order of succession, and the apparatus is so extremely simple that any person, without any previous acquaintance with it, can send a communication and read the answer.”

When Professor Wheatstone made the above statement, he also explained that Mr. Cooke had devised an apparatus whereby a bell worked by one wire could be rung at the other end of the wire by the sender, in order to draw the attention of the receiver to the message about to be sent. He added that Mr. Cooke had particularly directed his attention to an arrangement by means of which communications could be made from intermediate parts of the line where there were no fixed stations. For that purpose posts were placed at every quarter of a mile along the line from which the guard of a train might, if necessary, send a message to a station in either direction by means of a portable instrument which he was to carry with him.

It was in the same year, after these statements were made, that Mr. Cooke began his series of complaints against Professor Wheatstone, whom he accused of claiming the invention of the telegraph as his exclusive work, and of omitting all mention of his (Mr. Cooke’s) name in connection with it. Mr. Cooke now (1840) maintained that he himself had invented the first telegraph, and thereupon a war of words arose as to the respective parts played by the patentees in the joint undertaking.

The controversy thus raised between the two partners, instead of being allowed to produce an instant rupture, which might have injured the progress of the telegraph, was submitted to the decision of Sir M. Isambard Brunel, engineer of the Thames Tunnel, and Professor Daniell, of King’s College, the one a friend of Mr. Cooke and the other a friend of Professor Wheatstone, and on April 27th, 1841, these two gentlemen drew up the following statement: “In March, 1836, Mr. Cooke, while engaged at Heidelberg in scientific pursuits, witnessed, for the first time, one of those well-known experiments with electricity considered as a possible means of communicating intelligence which have been tried and exhibited from time to time during many years by various philosophers. Struck with the vast importance of an instantaneous mode of communication to the railways then extending themselves over Great Britain as well as to Government and general purposes, and impressed with the strong conviction that so great an object might be practically attained by means of electricity, Mr. Cooke immediately directed his attention to the adaptation of electricity to a practical system of telegraphing, and giving up the profession in which he was engaged, he from that hour devoted himself exclusively to the realisation of that object. He came to England in April, 1836, to perfect his plans and instruments. In February, 1837, while engaged in completing a set of instruments for the intended experimental application of his telegraph to the tunnel of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, he became acquainted, through the introduction of Dr. Roget, with Professor Wheatstone, who had for several years given much attention to the subject of transmitting intelligence by electricity, and had made several discoveries of the highest importance connected with this subject. Among these were his well-known determination of the velocity of electricity when passing through a metal wire; his experiments in which the deflection of magnetic needles, the decomposition of water, and other voltaic and magneto-electric effects were produced through greater lengths of wire than had ever before been experimented upon; and his original method of converting a few wires into a considerable number of circuits, so that they might transmit the greatest number of signals that can be transmitted by a given number of wires by the deflection of magnetic needles.

“In May, 1837, Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone took out a joint English patent on a footing of equality for their existing inventions. The terms of their partnership, which were more exactly defined and confirmed in November, 1837, by a partnership deed, vested in Mr. Cooke as the originator of the undertaking the exclusive management of the invention in Great Britain, Ireland, and the Colonies, with the exclusive engineering department, as between themselves, and all the benefits arising from the laying down of the lines and the manufacture of the instruments. As partners standing on a perfect equality, Messrs. Cooke and Wheatstone were to divide equally all proceeds arising from the granting of licenses or from the sale of patent rights, a percentage being first payable to Mr. Cooke as manager. Professor Wheatstone retained an equal voice with Mr. Cooke in selecting and modifying the forms of the telegraphic instruments, and both parties pledged themselves to impart to each other for their equal and mutual benefit all improvements of whatever kind which they might become possessed of connected with the giving of signals or the sending of alarms by means of electricity. Since the formation of the partnership the undertaking has rapidly progressed under the constant and equally successful exertions of the parties in their distinct departments, till it has attained the character of a simple and practical system worked out scientifically on the sure basis of actual experience.

“While Mr. Cooke is entitled to stand alone as the gentleman to whom this country is indebted for having practically introduced and carried out the electric telegraph as a useful undertaking, promising to be a work of national importance; and Professor Wheatstone is acknowledged as the scientific man whose profound and successful researches had already prepared the public to receive it as a project capable of practical application; it is to the united labours of two gentlemen so well qualified for mutual assistance that we must attribute the rapid progress which this important invention has made during the five years that they have been associated.”

For a time the rivalry or jealousy seemed at rest. Both Mr. Cooke and Professor Wheatstone concurred in the above statement, and Mr. Cooke gave prominence to the portions of it most favourable to him, claiming that such passages formed the award of an arbitration that resulted in his favour. But Professor Daniell in 1843 explained that this document was not an “award” of the arbitrators, for the arbitration was not proceeded with. The arbitrators, considering the pecuniary interests at stake and the relative position of the parties, were of opinion, he said, that without entering into the evidence of the originality of the invention on either side, a statement of facts might be drawn up, of the principal of which there appeared to be no essential discrepancy in the statement of either party, and that they might thus amicably settle the unfortunate misunderstanding that had occurred. He added that with a view to promote such an amicable settlement the arbitrators insisted, as a preliminary step, upon the withdrawal and destruction of 1000 copies of an ex parte statement of evidence proposed to be brought forward, and of a most intemperate address prepared by Mr. Cooke’s solicitor.

The lull produced by that document was only temporary. When anything was published making favourable mention of Professor Wheatstone’s originality as the inventor of the telegraph, Mr. Cooke or his partisans openly accused the Professor of tampering with the press, and Mr. Cooke himself was not above publishing protestations for the purpose of showing his “own surprising forbearance,” as well as the “egotism,” “humiliation,” and “perseveringly repeated misrepresentations” of Professor Wheatstone!

In later years Mr. Cooke or his friends paraded before the public an article in his favour that appeared in a quarterly review since deceased. That article was represented as having been written by Sir David Brewster, and as giving a correct account of the origin of the telegraph. It stated that Mr. Cooke had previously held a commission in the Indian Army, “and having returned from India on leave of absence and on account of ill health, he afterwards resigned his commission and went to Heidelberg to study anatomy. In the month of March, 1836, Professor Möncke of Heidelberg exhibited an electro-telegraphic experiment in which electric currents, passing along a conducting wire, conveyed signals to a distant station by the deflection of the magnetic needle inclosed in Schweigger’s galvanometer or multiplier. The currents were produced by a voltaic battery placed at each end of the wire, and the apparatus was worked by moving the ends of the wires backward and forward between the battery and the galvanometer. Mr. Cooke was so struck with this experiment that he immediately resolved to apply it to purposes of higher utility than the illustration of a lecture, and he abandoned his anatomical pursuits and applied his whole energies to the invention of an electric telegraph. Within three weeks, in April, 1836, he made his first electric telegraph, partly at Heidelberg, and partly at Frankfort. It was of the galvanometer form consisting of six wires, forming three metallic circuits, and influencing three needles. By the combination of these, he obtained an alphabet of twenty-six signals. Mr. Cooke soon afterwards made another electric telegraph of a different construction. He had invented the detector, for discovering the locality of injuries done to the wires, the reciprocal communicator, and the alarm. All this was done in the months of March and April, 1836; and in June and July of the same year he recorded the details of his system in a manuscript pamphlet from which it was obvious that in July, 1836, he had wrought out his practical system from the minutest official details up to the records and extended ramifications of an important political and commercial engine.” The article goes on to say that when his telegraphic apparatus was completed, he showed it in November, 1836, to Mr. Faraday, and afterwards submitted it and his pamphlet in January, 1837, to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company, with whom he made a conditional arrangement, with the view of using it on the long tunnel at Liverpool. In February, 1837, when he was about to apply for a patent he consulted Mr. Faraday and Dr. Roget on the construction of the electro-magnet employed in a part of his apparatus, and the last of these gentlemen advised him to consult Professor Wheatstone, to whom he went, according to Mr. Cooke’s account, on the 27th of February, 1837.

Now the article containing these statements was doubtless attributed to Sir David Brewster in the hope that his name would be accepted as a guarantee of its accuracy. Fortunately for all concerned, however, Sir David Brewster had previously placed on record his opinion on this question of the telegraph in a manner that put it beyond doubt. Asked by a Committee of the House of Lords in 1851 whether Professor Wheatstone was the undoubted inventor of the electric telegraph, Sir David Brewster replied: “Undoubtedly he is.” Further asked whether there was not a Swede who had paid great attention to the subject, Sir David said Oersted was the discoverer of electromagnetism, but had that not been discovered at all, ordinary magnetism was quite capable of being the moving power in the electric telegraph. He added that if electromagnetism had been the only means of working a telegraph, then the merit, not of the telegraph, but of what was necessary to the existence of the telegraph, would have belonged to Professor Oersted. When, on the other hand, the same Committee pressed Sir I. K. Brunel to say whom he considered the inventor of the telegraph, he replied: “Messrs Cooke and Wheatstone derive a large sum of money from the electric telegraph; but I believe you will find fifty people who will say that they invented it also: I suppose it would be difficult to trace the original inventor of anything.”