282 THE ADDRESSES, LECTURES, ETC., OF 



tion may be traced to this good town of Birmingham, where Mr. 

 George Elkington, utilising the discoveries of Davy, Faraday, and 

 Jacobi, had established a practical process of electro-plating in 1842. 



It affords me great satisfaction to be able to state that I had 

 something to do with that first practical application of electricity ; 

 for in March of the following year, 1843, 1 presented myself before 

 Mr. Elkington with an improvement on his processes which he 

 adopted, and in so doing gave me my first start in practical life. 

 Considering the moral lesson involved, it may interest you, 

 perhaps, if I divert for a few minutes from rny subject in order to 

 relate a personal incident connected with this my first appearance 

 amongst you. 



When the electrotype process first became known it excited a 

 very general interest, and although I was only a young student of 

 Gottingen under twenty years of age, who had just entered upon 

 his practical career with a mechanical engineer, I joined my 

 brother, Werner Siemens, then a young lieutenant of artillery in 

 the Prussian service, in his endeavours to accomplish electro- 

 gilding, the first impulse in this direction having been given by 

 Professor C. Himly, then of Gottingen. After attaining some 

 promising results, a spirit of enterprise came over me so strong 

 that I tore myself away from the narrow circumstances surround- 

 ing me, and landed at the East End of London with only a few 

 pounds in my pocket and without friends, but with an ardent 

 confidence of ultimate success within my breast. 



I expected to find some office in which inventions were 

 examined into, and rewarded if found meritorious, but no one 

 could direct me to such a place. In walking along Finsbury 

 Pavement I saw written up in large letters " So and so " (I forget 

 the name), " Undertaker," and the thought struck me that this 

 must be the place I was in quest of ; at any rate, I thought that 

 a person advertising himself as an " undertaker " would not refuse 

 to look into my invention with a view of obtaining for me the 

 sought-for recognition or reward. On entering the place I soon 

 convinced myself, however, that L came decidedly too soon for the 

 kind of enterprise here contemplated, and finding myself con- 

 fronted with the proprietor of the establishment, I covered my 

 retreat by what he must have thought a very lame excuse. By 

 dint of perseverance I found my way to the patent office of 



