138 THE TELEGRAPH IN DORSET. 



faculty (he obtained several valuable medals, as well as money 

 prizes, from the Society of Arts) he speedily devised a method of 

 overcoming the difficulty. It consisted of a spring clutch, which 

 firmly held the shutter in either of its two positions, vertical or 

 horizontal. 



His letter, dated Blandford, April 20th, 1807, was addressed to 

 C. Taylor, M.D. Sec. (Soc. of Arts), and is as follows : 



" SIR, Being one day at the Telegraph on the Blandford Station I 

 observed a great inconvenience attend the working of it in windy 

 weather, and many errors occasioned in consequence. I have since made 

 a model of a crank which will perfectly remedy these defects, and have 

 herewith sent the model for the inspection of the Society, trusting it will 

 meet with their approbation." 



The result was a memorandum to the following effect : " Ten 

 guineas were this session (1808) presented to Mr. Henry Ward, of 

 Blandford, in Dorsetshire, for a crank useful in working Telegraphs. 

 The following communications were received from him : an en- 

 graving (one shutter) is annexed, and a complete model is preserved 

 in the Society's Repository." 



It would be interesting to ascertain if this model is still in 

 existence. The plan, a full description of which is given in the 

 26th vol. (1808) of the Society's journal, pp. 207-8, seems both 

 simple and effective, and one not unlikely to be useful for other 

 similar purposes. 



In conclusion might I venture to ask my fellow members of the 

 Dorset Field Club to kindly send to me the names of the sites of 

 any old Telegraph Stations that might have existed in their 

 neighbourhood. The efforts I have made by correspondence and 

 by the insertion of a query in our local " Notes and Queries " 

 have not hitherto been productive of useful result. Such a list, if 

 furnished, might well form a footnote to this short and imperfect 

 paper. 



Since the publication of my paper in the local journals I have 

 been favoured with several letters on the subject. That from 



