Telegraph sounder

Long before we had email, and even before the telephone, messages were conveyed by telegraph. Telegrams were still sent to some extent into the 1960's but where I worked the last telegraph system was removed in the early 1970's.

Prior to the telegraph messages could be sent over short distances by semaphore or other systems such as fires on towers. However, there was no way to speedily send a message over long distances. An early telegraph pioneer learned of the death of his wife by letter, which he received long after the funeral. The invention of the telegraph was truly revolutionary. Here is a quote from the "Hand-book of Natural Philosophy" by Dionysius Lardner, D.C.L, published in London in 1856:

"Of all the applications of electric agency to the uses of life, that which is transcendently the most admirable in its effects, and the most important in its consequences, is the electric telegraph. No force of habit, however long continued, no degree of familiarity, can efface the sense of wonder which the effects of this most marvellous application of science excite."

I mentioned yesterday that my father would receive time signals by telegraph. The sounder in the photo is almost identical to the sounder that would deliver the time signals.