Charles Weatstone
6 February 1802 - 19 October 1875

English scientist and inventor, known for the Concertina, the Stereoscope and the Playfair cipher and many more inventions and developments in mechanics, optics, acoustics, electricity and general physics.

He also contributed to Samuel Hunter Christie's measuring bridge which came to be known as the Wheatstone Bridge.

From 1835 onwards he worked on an electric telegraph system. Together with William Forthergill Cooke he developed the Five-needle Telegraph which was demonstrated on an experimental line between Euston and Camden of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) on 25 July 1837.

The first commercial telegraph in the world was installed on a 13 mile line of the Great Western Railway (GWR) between Paddington and West Drayton in 1838.

In 1840 he patented the Wheatstone ABC instrument, an alphabetical telegraph, followed by the world's first printing telegraph in 1841, which used the same system.

His awarded paper about Christie's measuring balance was presented to the Royal Society in 1843, bringing notice to this invention of 1833.

The needle telegraph was patented in 1845 and subsequently sold to John Lewis Ricardo who established the Electric Telegraph Co.

From 1861 - 1866 Wheatstone was a director and shareholder of the Universal Private Telegraph Co.