Early History of the Electric Telegraph. 119 



the gratitude, if nothing else, of the whole civilised world 

 belongs for his investigations into the applications of 

 electricity and magnetism, which are now considered by 

 competent authorities to have constituted those first 

 important steps which rendered all subsequent details of the 

 electric telegraph an easy task. From some articles and 

 correspondence in the Electrician, it is pretty clear that Dr. 

 Edward Davy (who was known by some of us thirty years 

 ago as superintendent of the Assay Office in Melbourne, 

 was one of the founders of the Philosophical Institute, the 

 parent of this Royal Society, and now resides at Malmsbury, 

 following his profession as a medical man) must be regarded, 

 in virtue of his most important discoveries, exhibitions of 

 working models at Exeter Hall, and his invitation to carry 

 out his electric telegraph on the Great Western line in Eng- 

 land, the real first inventor of the electric telegraph. The 

 history, in brief, seems to be this : As early as 1836 Davy 

 conceived the possibility of an electric telegraph, and 

 appears to have had an excellent knowledge and thorough 

 grasp of the properties of electricity. He had been educated 

 for the medical profession, and took his diploma at the 

 Royal College of Surgeons in 1828. He then seems to have 

 taken up the business of an operative or analytical chemist ; 

 and we have heard of several chemical instruments invented 

 or improved by him. During this time (about 1835) he 

 seems to have made some investigations into electricity; 

 and in 1836 the possibility of using the electric current 

 for telegraphic purposes suggested itself to him, and 

 he matured a method, which he patented in 1838, as 

 already stated. Wheatstone and Cooke patented in 1837, 

 and afterwards actually carried their needle telegraph 

 into operation, and obtained its adoption on the rail- 

 way lines of Great Britain. Davy, who had matured 

 his plan and exhibited working models before this time, 

 contested unsuccessfully the granting of the patent. Per- 

 haps from the want of means, or perhaps for lack of the 

 commercial afflatus, so often absent in scientific men, yet so 

 essential to the substantial success of a discovery or inven- 

 tion, Davy failed to carry his telegraph into practical use, 

 and eventually we hear of his having come to Australia in 

 1839. His connection with the early discovery of the 

 electric telegraph was forgotten ; nor does he ever seem to 

 have in any way resuscitated the matter until his work is 

 referred to in Mr. Fahie's papers on the early history of the 



