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281
Heroes of the Telegraph
·
John Munro
267
IV.
ALEXANDER
BAIN.
Alexander
Bain
was
born
of
humble
parents
in
the
little
town
of
Thurso,
at
the
extreme
north
of
Scotland,
in
the
year
1811.
At
the
age
of
twelve
he
went
to
hear
a
penny
lecture
on
science
which,
according
to
his
own
account,
set
him
thinking
and
influenced
his
whole
future.
Learning
the
art
of
clockmaking,
he
went
to
Edinburgh,
and
subsequently
removed
to
London,
where
he
obtained
work
in
Clerkenwell,
then
famed
for
its
clocks
and
watches.
His
first
patent
is
dated
January
11th,
1841,
and
is
in
the
name
of
John
Barwise,
chronometer
maker,
and
Alexander
Bain,
mechanist,
Wigmore
Street.
It
describes
his
electric
clock
in
which
there
is
an
electro-magnetic
pendulum,
and
the
electric
current
is
employed
to
keep
it
going
instead
of
springs
or
weights.
He
improved
on
this
idea
in
following
patents,
and
also
proposed
to
derive
the
motive
electricity
from
an
'earth
battery,'
by
burying
plates
of
zinc
and
copper
in
the
ground.
Gauss
and
Steinheil
had
priority
in
this
device
which,
owing
to
'polarisation'
of
the
plates
and
to
drought,
is
not
reliable.
Long
afterwards
Mr.
Jones
of
Chester
succeeded
in
regulating
timepieces
from
a
standard
astronomical
clock
by
an
improvement
on
the
method
of
Bain.
On
December
21,
1841,
Bain,
in
conjunction
with
Lieut.
Thomas
Wright,
R.N.,
of
Percival
Street,
Clerkenwell,
patented
means
of
applying
electricity
to
control
railway
engines
by
turning
off
the
steam,
marking
time,
giving
signals,
and
printing
intelligence
at
different
places.
He
also
proposed
to
utilise
'natural
bodies
of
water'
for
a
return
wire,
but
the
earlier
experimenters
had
done
so,
particularly
Steinheil
in
1838.
The
most
important
idea
in
the
patent
is,
perhaps,
his
plan
for
inverting
the
needle
telegraph
of
Ampere,
Wheatstone
and
others,
and
instead
of
making
the
signals
by
the
movements
of
a
pivoted
magnetic
needle
under
the
influence
of
an
electrified
coil,
obtaining
them
by
suspending
a
movable
coil
traversed
by
the
current,
between
the
poles
of
a
fixed
magnet,
as
in
the
later
siphon
recorder
of
Sir
William
Thomson.
Bain
also
proposed
to
make
the
coil
record
the
message
by
printing
it
in
type;
and
he
developed
the
idea
in
a
subsequent
patent.
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