Sir Francis Ronalds

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Sir Francis Ronalds (1788-1873) was a meteorologist, an inventor and a pioneer of the electric telegraph. He was knighted in 1870 for his contributions to science.

[edit] Biography

He was born on 21 February 1788 in London, Middlessex, England to parents Francis Ronalds and Jane Field. Varying sources give him either ten or eleven siblings. His father died when Francis was nineteen leaving him and his mother to take over the family cheesemonger business. He was fascinated in practical science as a child and was encouraged by Jean Andre de Luc to explore electricity in 1814. He created a primitive electric telegraph in 1816 and sent messages through eight miles of wire arranged in his garden at Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, London (west end of London). The wire was enclosed in glass tubing and buried in trenches which ran around in the garden. Ronalds went to the British Admiralty (Navy), but they said they were not interested, so Ronalds soon gave up. He never patented his work and it fell upon Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke to later patent and popularise the model.

Ronalds then took to travelling around Europe and the Mediterranean studying science. During this time he began collecting the Ronalds Library, now containing 2,000 volumes and 4,000 pamphlets. It was presented to the Institution of Electrical Engineers (initially Society of Telegraph Engineers) under a trust deed in 1875. In 1843 he became director and superintendent of the Kew Meteorological Observatory. His work involved a system of registering meteorological data.

He retired in 1852 and was able to live comfortably off a pension for his services to science. He continued working on various projects including his library, and record keeping. He was knighted for his contributions to the invention of the telegraph and died on 8 August 1873.

Fun Fact: It was at Kelmscott House that Sir Francis Ronalds set up a primitive telegraph in 1816. He ran eight miles of cable (encased in glass tubing) through the back garden and succeeded in getting an electrical signal along the full length. He contacted the Admiralty, but they were not interested at that time in telegraph.

[edit] The Ronalds telegraph

Sir Francis Ronalds invented a clock-like transmitter in 1816. Without patenting it, he offered his electrical telegraph to the British government where his invention was rejected. Many telecommunications technologies such as Ronald's electrical telegraph were not necessary for governments at the time and therefore many were never pursued.