Francis Ronalds
| Sir Francis Ronalds FRS | |
|---|---|
Photo of Hugh Carter's portrait of Sir Francis Ronalds
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| Born |
21 February 1788 City of London, England |
| Died | 8 August 1873 (aged 85) Battle, East Sussex |
| Residence | United Kingdom |
| Fields | Physics, Electrical Engineering, Applied mechanics, Meteorology, Photography, Archaeology |
| Known for |
Electric telegraph Continuously recording camera Perspective drawing instruments |
Sir Francis Ronalds FRS (21 February 1788 – 8 August 1873) was an English scientist and inventor, and arguably the first electrical engineer. He was knighted for creating the first working electric telegraph.
Born to merchants Francis Ronalds and Jane née Field at their cheesemonger business in Upper Thames Street, London, he attended Unitarian minister Eliezer Cogan's school before being apprenticed to his father at the age of 14. He ran the large business for some years. The family later resided in Highbury Terrace Islington, at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, Queen Square in Bloomsbury, at Croydon, and on Chiswick Lane.
Several of Ronalds’ eleven brothers and sisters also led noteworthy lives. His youngest brother Alfred authored the classic book The Fly-fisher's Entomology (1836) before migrating to Australia and their brother Hugh was one of the founders of the city of Albion in the American Midwest. Their sisters married Samuel Carter – a railway solicitor and MP – and sugar-refiner Peter Martineau of the famous Martineau family. Another sister Emily epitomised the family's interest in social reform through her collaborations with early socialists Robert Owen and Fanny Wright.
Chemistry professor Edmund Ronalds and artist Hugh Carter are two of Ronalds' nephews and his nurseryman uncle Hugh Ronalds published the revered book Pyrus Malus Brentfordiensis: or, a Concise Description of Selected Apples (1831).
Ronalds was conducting electrical experiments by 1810: those on atmospheric electricity were outlined in George Singer's text Elements of Electricity and Electro-Chemistry (1814). He published his first papers in the Philosophical Magazine in 1814 on the properties of the dry pile, a form of battery that his mentor Jean-André Deluc helped to develop. The next year he described the first electric clock.
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