William Fothergill Cooke

William Fothergill Cooke
William Fothergill Cooke
Born	4 May 1806 Ealing, England
Died	25 June 1878(1878-06-25) (aged 72) Farnham, Surrey, England
Known for	Electrical telegraph
Notable awards	Albert Medal (1867)

Sir William Fothergill Cooke (4 May 1806 – 25 June 1879) was an English inventor.

He was, with Charles Wheatstone, the co-inventor of the Cooke-Wheatstone electrical telegraph, which was patented in May 1837. Together with John Lewis Ricardo he founded the Electric Telegraph Company, the world's first public telegraph company, in 1846. He was knighted in 1869.

He was born at Ealing, Middlesex; his William Cooke father was a surgeon there, and later was appointed professor of anatomy at the University of Durham. He was educated at Durham School and at the University of Edinburgh, and at the age of 20 entered the Indian Army.

After five years' service in India Cooke returned home; then studied medicine in Paris, and at Heidelberg under Georg Wilhelm Munke. In 1836 he saw electric telegraphy, then only experimental: Munke had illustrated his lectures with a telegraphic apparatus on the principle introduced by Pavel Schilling in 1835. Cooke decided to put the invention into practical operation with the railway systems; and gave up medicine.

Early in 1837 Cooke returned to England, with introductions to Michael Faraday and Peter Mark Roget. Through them he was introduced to Charles Wheatstone, who in 1834 gave the Royal Society an account of experiments on the velocity of electricity. Cooke had already constructed a system of telegraphing with three needles on Schilling's principle, and made designs for a mechanical alarm. He had also made some progress in negotiating with the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company for the use of his telegraphs. Cooke and Wheatstone went into partnership in May 1837; Cooke handled the business side.