Wheatstone, Sir Charles, (1802-1875)

  • Wheatstone, Charles, (1802-1875)
Date:
mid 19th century - late 19th century
Reference:
MS.8007/7
Part of:
Miscellany: British, mainly 19th-20th centuries
  • Archives and manuscripts

Collection contents

About this work

Description

Letters and notes from Charles Wheatstone, 22 Apr 1855-18 Feb 1873, and 5 undated items (MS.8007/7/17-21).

Recipients include a Mr Brooke, Abbé Moigne, Sir John[?], Mr Ward, Mr Murray, Mr Miller, Dr Radcliffe and E Cowper. Some letters concern Wheatstone's electric telegraph developments and instruments and other scientific research, notably an argument with Sir David Brewster over who was first to use refracting prisms for stereoscopes (MS.8007/7/7); a dispute with Mr Morse regarding electric telegraph innovations (MS.8007/7/8); instructions on how to restore writing effaced by time (MS.8007/7/2); notes on the 'new photometer' (MS.8007/7/18).

Three items have newspaper cuttings pasted on: 'Wheatstone's new domestic telegraph' (MS.8007/7/1), information from an Italian newspaper on 'Carlo Weastone' (MS. 8007/7/17), and an obituary of Wheatstone (MS.8007/7/15).

Publication/Creation

mid 19th century - late 19th century

Physical description

21 items: letters and notes

Contributors

Arrangement

Chronological, followed by undated items.

Acquisition note

Acc.72200 purchased from Mrs. Watson, Burnley, March 1945, presumably once part of the Thomas Madden Stone autograph collection; Acc.67391 purchased from an unknown vendor, Paris, April 1930; Acc64689 purchased from Desgranges, Paris, February 1931; Acc.66044 purchased from Lubrano, Naples, July 1933; Acc 76088 purchased from Sotheby's, London, February 1932; Acc.65134 purchased from Sotheby's, London, April 1932; Acc.63459 purchased from Desgranges, Paris, October 1930; Acc69200 part of a batch of material transferred from Wellcome Historical Medical Museum offices, provenance not known; Acc.68472 purchased from Glendining, London, March 1935; Acc56545 purchased from Stevens, London, July 1930; Acc52792 purchased from Sotheby's, London, May 1930; Acc.67694 purchased from Glendining, London, August 1932; Acc.45498 purchased from R.V. Westcott, May 1927; Acc.68196 purchased from Stevens, London, July 1931.

Biographical note

English physicist, electrician, inventor, FRS, LLD. Carried out important pioneering work on sound and telegraphy. Invented an electric telegraph. Also invented the stereoscope and was the first to synchronise a number of clocks by means of electro-magnetism. Appointed Professor of Natural Philosophy (experimental physics) at King's College, London, in 1834. He was knighted in 1868 and created LLD by the University of Edinburgh in 1869.

Related material

See MS.7400/28

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Identifiers

Accession number

  • See above.