The Electric Telegraph - Its History and Progress

The author of this book, Edward Highton (1817-1859) was a Victorian civil engineer, telegraph engineer and company promoter. A professional in his field, he worked throughout his life in close collaboration with his brother, the Reverend Henry Highton, who can perhaps be best described as a gifted amateur. Edward Highton was at one time the telegraphic superintendent of the London & North Western Railway, who independently developed and patented a simplified and inexpensive needle telegraph instrument that used keys (or tappers), rather than the commutators with drop handles that were more common at the time. He made a number of innovations in overhead wire telegraphy, as well as advocating the laying of resin insulated underground cables. In 1849 he founded the British Electric Telegraph Company, to exploit the patents held by him and his brother. His single needle telegraph was one of the most widely used in Britain. In this treatise Highton traces the development of telegraphs generally, before discussing the generation of electricity for telegraphic purposes by all the means known at the time. He reviews the history of the telegraph before 1837 in Britain, Europe and America, then covers in more detail systems currently in use at the time this book was published. This includes telegraphic instruments and circuits in Britain, America, France, Prussia and Germany, Russia, India and other countries. He discusses message charges and the regulation of time by the telegraph, before some concluding remarks on the utility of the electric telegraph. He also relates some amusing misunderstandings of the new electrical technology by the general public.