3-021-354 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sir Charles Wheatstone, professor of Experimental Philosophy, King's College, 1868. Engraving from a photograph by Messrs Hills and Saunders, of '...one of the most eminently successful professors of experimental science...a very able teacher and inventor; the joint author, with Mr. Cooke, of the electric telegraph; and the precursor of Sir David Brewster in the invention of the stereoscope...[In 1834] he produced a report on some experiments in measuring the speed of electric currents and the duration of the electric light...Having made a special investigation in the department of optics, he discovered and explained the laws of binocular vision, on which the invention of the stereoscope is founded. In 1837, he first met Mr. Cooke, who had been engaged...in his plans and experiments for the construction of an electric telegraph, to be laid down on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; whilst Professor Wheatstone had already devised a method of arranging circuits of wires to transmit signals by the deflection of magnetic needles. They agreed to join each other in this undertaking, and took out a patent, on terms of perfect equality...The first practical trial of the new invention was made on the Blackwall Railway in 1838'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.