Frederick Collier Bakewell (29 September 1800 – 26 September 1869) was an English physicist who improved on the concept of the

facsimile machine Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...

introduced by Alexander Bain in 1842 and demonstrated a working laboratory version at the 1851 World's Fair in London.

Biography

Born in

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

, West Yorkshire, he eventually moved to

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

where he lived until his death. He is buried in a family grave in

Kensal Green Cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederic ...

. Bakewell was married to Henrietta Darbyshire with whom he had two sons, Robert and Armitage.

Image telegraph

Family grave of Frederick Bakewell in Kensal Green Cemetery

Bakewell's "image telegraph" had many of the features of modern facsimile machines, and replaced the pendulums of Bain's system with synchronized rotating cylinders. The system involved writing or drawing on a piece of metal foil with a special insulating ink; the foil was then wrapped around a cylinder which slowly rotated, driven by a clock mechanism. A metal stylus driven by a screw thread traveled across the surface of the cylinder as it turned, tracing out a path over the foil. Each time the stylus crossed the insulating ink, the

current Currents, Current or The Current may refer to: Science and technology * Current (fluid), the flow of a liquid or a gas ** Air current, a flow of air ** Ocean current, a current in the ocean *** Rip current, a kind of water current ** Current (stre ...

through the foil to the stylus was interrupted. At the receiver, a similar pendulum-driven stylus marked chemically treated paper with an electric current as the receiving cylinder rotated. The chief problems with Bakewell's machine were how to keep the two cylinders synchronized and to make sure that the transmitting and receiving styli started at the same point on the cylinder at the same time. Despite these problems, Bakewell's machine was capable of transmitting handwriting and simple line drawings along telegraph wires. The system, however, never became commercial. Later, in 1861, the system was improved by an Italian priest,

Giovanni Caselli Giovanni Caselli (8 June 1815 – 25 April 1891) was an Italian priest, inventor, and physicist. He studied electricity and magnetism as a child which led to his invention of the pantelegraph (also known as the universal telegraph or all-purpose ...

who was able to use it to send handwritten messages as well as photographs on his

pantelegraph The pantelegraph (Italian: ''pantelegrafo''; French: ''pantélégraphe'') was an early form of facsimile machine transmitting over normal telegraph lines developed by Giovanni Caselli, used commercially in the 1860s, that was the first such de ...

. He introduced the first commercial telefax service between Paris and

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

eleven years before the invention of workable telephones.The Hebrew University of Jerusalem – Giovanni Caselli biography

Other work

In addition to his work on

facsimile transmission Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...

, he held patents for many other innovations. Bakewell also wrote texts on

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

and

natural phenomena Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are p ...

Books

* Philosophical conversations – 1833 * Electric science; its history, phenomena, and applications – 1853

Footnotes

References

Birth / Death Dates

* Chronological Index of Patents Applied for and Patents Granted for the Year 1863 – Bennet Woodcroft – 1864

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bakewell, Frederick English inventors 1800 births 1869 deaths Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery