Sir Francis Ronalds
FRS (21 February 17888 August 1873) was an English scientist and inventor, and arguably the first
electrical engineer.
He was knighted for creating the first working
electric telegraph
Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems ...
over a substantial distance. In 1816 he laid an eight-mile length of iron wire between wooden frames in his mother's garden and sent pulses using
electrostatic generator
An electrostatic generator, or electrostatic machine, is an electrical generator that produces ''static electricity'', or electricity at high voltage and low continuous current. The knowledge of static electricity dates back to the earliest ci ...
s.
Upbringing and family
Born to Francis Ronalds and Jane (née Field), wholesale cheesemongers, at their business premises in Upper
Thames Street, London, he attended
Unitarian minister
Eliezer Cogan's school before being apprenticed to his father at the age of 14 through the
Drapers' Company
The Worshipful Company of Drapers is one of the 110 livery companies of the City of London. It has the formal name The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of Dr ...
. He ran the large business for some years. The family later resided in
Canonbury
Canonbury is a residential area of Islington in the London Borough of Islington, North London. It is roughly in the area between Essex Road, Upper Street and Cross Street and either side of St Paul's Road.
In 1253 land in the area was granted to ...
Place and Highbury Terrace, both in
Islington, at
Kelmscott House in Hammersmith,
Queen Square in Bloomsbury, at
Croydon
Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extensi ...
, and on
Chiswick Lane.
Several of Ronalds' eleven brothers and sisters also led noteworthy lives. His youngest brother
Alfred Ronalds authored the classic book ''
The Fly-fisher's Entomology
''The Fly-Fisher's Entomology, Illustrated by Coloured Representations of the Natural and Artificial Insect and Accompanied by a Few Observations and Instructions Relative to Trout-and-Grayling Fishing'', first published in 1836 by Alfred Ronald ...
'' (1836) with Ronalds' assistance before migrating to Australia and their brother Hugh was one of the founders of the city of
Albion in the American Midwest. His sisters married
Samuel Carter – a railway solicitor and MP – and sugar-refiner Peter Martineau, the son of
Peter Finch Martineau
Peter Finch Martineau (12 June 1755 – 2 December 1847) was an English businessman and a philanthropist, with particular interest in improving the lives of disadvantaged people through education.
Life and family
A Unitarian, he was born into t ...
. Another sister Emily epitomised the family's interest in social reform through her collaborations with early socialists
Robert Owen and
Fanny Wright
Frances Wright (September 6, 1795 – December 13, 1852), widely known as Fanny Wright, was a Scottish-born lecturer, writer, freethinker, feminist, utopian socialist, abolitionist, social reformer, and Epicurean philosopher, who became ...
.
Nurseryman
Hugh Ronalds
Hugh Ronalds (4 March 1760 – 18 November 1833) was an esteemed nurseryman and horticulturalist in Brentford, who published ''Pyrus Malus Brentfordiensis: or, a Concise Description of Selected Apples'' (1831). His plants were some of the first ...
was his uncle, and his nephews included chemistry professor
Edmund Ronalds
Dr Edmund Ronalds FCS FRSE (18 June 1819 – 9 September 1889) was an English academic and industrial chemist. He was co-author of a seminal series of books on chemical technology that helped begin university teaching of chemical applications f ...
, artist
Hugh Carter, barrister
John Corrie Carter
John Corrie Carter (29 December 1839 – 5 June 1927) was an English Barristers in England and Wales, barrister, High Sheriff, author and sportsman.
Life and family
Born at Islington Row, Birmingham, Corrie Carter was the third son of Maria (yo ...
and timber merchant and benefactor
James Montgomrey James Montgomrey (1 September 1811 – 4 June 1883) ran a large timber mill in Brentford, Middlesex, that was in the family for 120 years. He also led the development of considerable infrastructure in the town to enhance public amenity.
Life and f ...
.
Thomas Field Gibson
Thomas Field Gibson FGS (3 March 1803 – 12 December 1889) was a Unitarian silk manufacturer and philanthropist. He supported several novel initiatives to enhance British manufacturing quality and international trade while improving life fo ...
, a
Royal Commissioner for the
Great Exhibition of 1851, was one of his cousins.
Early electrical science and engineering
Ronalds was conducting electrical experiments by 1810: those on
atmospheric electricity
Atmospheric electricity is the study of electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet). The movement of charge between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere is known as the global atmospheric electr ...
were outlined in
George Singer's text ''Elements of Electricity and Electro-Chemistry'' (1814). He published his first papers in the
Philosophical Magazine
The ''Philosophical Magazine'' is one of the oldest scientific journals published in English. It was established by Alexander Tilloch in 1798;John Burnett"Tilloch, Alexander (1759–1825)" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford Univer ...
in 1814 on the properties of the
dry pile, a form of battery that his mentor
Jean-André Deluc
Jean-André Deluc or de Luc (8 February 1727 – 7 November 1817) was a Swiss geologist, natural philosopher and meteorologist. He also devised measuring instruments.
Biography
Jean-André Deluc was born in Geneva. His family had come to the ...
helped to develop. The next year he described the first
electric clock.
Other inventions in this early period included an
electrograph to record variations in atmospheric electricity through the day; an
influence machine
An electrostatic generator, or electrostatic machine, is an electrical generator that produces ''static electricity'', or electricity at high voltage and low continuous current. The knowledge of static electricity dates back to the earliest civil ...
that generated electricity with minimal manual intervention; and new forms of electrical insulation, one of which was announced by Singer.
He was also already creating what would become the renowned Ronalds Library of electrical books and managing his collection with perhaps the first practical
card catalogue
A library catalog (or library catalogue in British English) is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations. A catalog for a group of libraries is also c ...
.
His theoretical contributions included an early
delineation of the parameters now known as electromotive force and current; an appreciation of the mechanism by which dry piles
generated electricity; and the first description of the effects of induction in
retarding electric signal transmission in insulated cables.
Electric telegraph
![Ronalds telegraph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Ronalds_telegraph.png)
Ronalds' most remembered work today is the
electric telegraph
Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems ...
he created at the age of 28. He established that electrical signals could be transmitted over large distances with eight miles of iron wire strung on insulators on his mother's lawn in Hammersmith. He found that the signal travelled immeasurably fast from one end to the other (but still believed the speed was finite).
Foreshadowing both a future electrical age and mass communication, he wrote:
electricity, may actually be employed for a more practically useful purpose than the gratification of the philosopher's inquisitive research… it may be compelled to travel... many hundred miles beneath our feet... and... be productive of... much public and private benefit... why... add to the torments of absence those dilatory tormentors, pens, ink, paper, and posts? Let us have ''electrical conversazione'' offices, communicating with each other all over the kingdom... give me materiel enough, and I will electrify the world.
He complemented his vision with a working telegraph system built in and under his mother's garden at Hammersmith.
It was infamously rejected on 5 August 1816 by
Sir John Barrow
Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1764 – 23 November 1848) was an English geographer, linguist, writer and civil servant best known for term as the Second Secretary to the Admiralty from 1804 until 1845.
Early life
Barrow was born ...
, Secretary at the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
, as being "wholly unnecessary". Commercialisation of the telegraph only began two decades later in the UK, led by
William Fothergill Cooke
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 Ricardo he f ...
and
Charles Wheatstone
Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS FRSE DCL LLD (6 February 1802 – 19 October 1875), was an English scientist and inventor of many scientific breakthroughs of the Victorian era, including the English concertina, the stereoscope (a device for di ...
, who both had links to Ronalds' earlier work.
Grand Tour
The period 1818–20 was Ronalds' "
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tut ...
" to Europe and the Near East. Embarking on his trip alone, he met up with numerous people along the way, including his friend
Sir Frederick Henniker, archaeologist
Giovanni Battista Belzoni
Giovanni Battista Belzoni (; 5 November 1778 – 3 December 1823), sometimes known as The Great Belzoni, was a prolific Italian explorer and pioneer archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities. He is known for his removal to England of the seven-ton ...
, artist
Giovanni Battista Lusieri
Giovanni Battista Lusieri (1755–1821) was an Italian landscape painter from Naples. He was court painter to Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies before working for Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and becoming involved in the removal and shipping of ...
, merchant Walter Stevenson Davidson, Revd
George Waddington
George Waddington (; 7 September 1793 – 20 July 1869) was an English priest, traveller and church historian.
Life
He was the son of George Waddington (1754?-1824), vicar of Tuxford and Anne Dollond, youngest daughter of the optician Peter Do ...
, Italian
numismatist
A numismatist is a specialist in numismatics ("of coins"; from Late Latin ''numismatis'', genitive of ''numisma''). Numismatists include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholars who use coins and other currency in object-based research. Altho ...
Giulio Cordero di San Quintino and Spanish geologist
Carlos de Gimbernat. Ronalds' travel journal and sketches have been published on the web. On his return, he published his atmospheric electricity observations made in
Palermo, Sicily, and near the erupting crater of
Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius ( ; it, Vesuvio ; nap, 'O Vesuvio , also or ; la, Vesuvius , also , or ) is a somma- stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of ...
.
Mechanical design and manufacture
Ronalds next focused on mechanical and civil engineering and design. Two
surveying tools he designed and used to aid the production of survey plans were a modified
surveyor's wheel that recorded distances travelled in graphical form and a
double-reflecting sector to draw the angular separation of distant objects. He also invented a forerunner to the
fire finder patented in 1915 to pinpoint the location of a fire and various accessories for the
lathe. Some of these devices were manufactured for sale by toolmaker
Holtzapffel
The Holtzapffel dynasty of tool and lathe makers was founded in Long Acre, London by a Strasbourg-born turner, Jean-Jacques Holtzapffel, in 1794. The firm specialized in lathes for ornamental turning but also made a name for its high-quality ed ...
.
There is some evidence to suggest that he assisted Charles Holtzapffel in the early stages of preparing the Holtzapffel family's renowned treatise on turning.
Perspective machines and tripod stand
On 23 March 1825, he patented two
drawing instruments for producing
perspective sketches; numerous
engravings
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...
and
lithographs
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
survive that he made using the machines. The first instrument produced a perspective view of an object directly from drawings of the plan and elevations. The second machine enabled a scene or person to be traced from life onto paper with considerable precision; he and Dr
Alexander Blair used it to document the important Neolithic monuments at
Carnac, France, with "almost photographic accuracy". He also created the ubiquitous portable
tripod stand with three pairs of hinged legs to support his drawing board in the field. He manufactured these instruments himself and several hundred of them were sold.
One of his first customers was mining engineer
John Taylor.
In 1840, he applied his understanding of perspective in developing more complex apparatus to aid the accurate depiction of cylindrical
panoramas
A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
, which were a popular exhibition at that time.
Kew Observatory
Ronalds set up the
Kew Observatory
The King's Observatory (called for many years the Kew Observatory) is a Grade I listed building in Richmond, London. Now a private dwelling, it formerly housed an astronomical and terrestrial magnetic observatory founded by King George III. T ...
for the
British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1842 and he remained Honorary Director of the facility until late 1853. It was through the quality of his achievements there that the Kew Observatory survived its early years and it went on to become one of the most important meteorological and geomagnetic observatories in the world. This was despite ongoing efforts by
George Airy
Sir George Biddell Airy (; 27 July 18012 January 1892) was an English mathematician and astronomer, and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the E ...
, Director of the
Greenwich Observatory
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG; known as the Old Royal Observatory from 1957 to 1998, when the working Royal Greenwich Observatory, RGO, temporarily moved south from Greenwich to Herstmonceux) is an observatory situated on a hill in G ...
, to undermine the work at Kew.
Continuously recording camera
![Ronalds' continuously recording camera](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Ronalds%27_continuously_recording_camera.jpg)
Ronalds' most noteworthy innovation at Kew, in 1845, was the first successful camera to make
continuous recordings of an instrument 24 hours per day. The British Prime Minister
Lord John Russell
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, (18 August 1792 – 28 May 1878), known by his courtesy title Lord John Russell before 1861, was a British Whig and Liberal statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1852 and a ...
gave him a financial award in recognition of the importance of the invention for observational science.
He applied his technique in
electrographs to observe
atmospheric electricity
Atmospheric electricity is the study of electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet). The movement of charge between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere is known as the global atmospheric electr ...
,
barograph
A barograph is a barometer that records the barometric pressure over time in graphical form. This instrument is also used to make a continuous recording of atmospheric pressure. The pressure-sensitive element, a partially evacuated metal cylinde ...
s and
thermo-hygrograph
A thermo-hygrograph or hygrothermograph is a chart recorder that measures and records both temperature and humidity (or dew point). Similar devices that record only one parameter are a thermograph for temperature and hygrograph for humidity.
The ...
s to monitor the weather, and
magnetographs to record the three components of
geomagnetic force. The magnetographs were used by
Edward Sabine
Sir Edward Sabine ( ; 14 October 1788 – 26 June 1883) was an Irish astronomer, geophysicist, ornithologist, explorer, soldier and the 30th president of the Royal Society.
He led the effort to establish a system of magnetic observatories in ...
in his global geomagnetic survey while the barograph and thermo-hygrograph were employed by the new
Met Office to assist its first
weather forecasts
Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the conditions of the atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia and formally since the 19th centu ...
. Ronalds also supervised the manufacture of his instruments for other observatories around the world (the
Radcliffe Observatory
Radcliffe Observatory was the astronomical observatory of the University of Oxford from 1773 until 1934, when the Radcliffe Trustees sold it and built a new observatory in Pretoria, South Africa. It is a Grade I listed building. Today, the ...
under
Manuel John Johnson
Manuel John Johnson, FRS (23 May 1805 – 28 February 1859) was a British astronomer.
He was born in Macao, China, the son of John William Roberts of the East India Company and was educated at Mr Styles' Classical Academy in Thames Ditton and at ...
and the
Colaba Observatory
Colaba Observatory, also known as the Bombay Observatory, was an astronomical, timekeeping, geomagnetic and meteorological observatory located on the Island of Colaba, Mumbai (Bombay), India.
History
The Colaba Observatory was built in 1826 by t ...
in India are two examples) and some continued in use until late in the 20th century.
Meteorological instruments and observations
Further instruments created at Kew included an improved version of
Regnault's aspirated
hygrometer
A hair tension dial hygrometer with a nonlinear scale.
A hygrometer is an instrument used to measure the amount of water vapor in air, in soil, or in confined spaces. Humidity measurement instruments usually rely on measurements of some other qu ...
that was employed for many years; an early
meteorological kite; and the storm clock used to monitor rapid changes in meteorological parameters during extreme events.
To observe atmospheric electricity, Ronalds created a sophisticated collecting apparatus with a suite of
electrometer
An electrometer is an electrical instrument for measuring electric charge or electrical potential difference. There are many different types, ranging from historical handmade mechanical instruments to high-precision electronic devices. Modern ...
s; the equipment was later manufactured and sold by London instrument-makers. A dataset of five years' duration was analysed and published by his observatory colleague
William Radcliffe Birt.
The phenomenon now known as
geomagnetically induced current
Geomagnetically induced currents (GIC) are electrical currents induced at the Earth's surface by rapid changes in the geomagnetic field caused by space weather events. GICs can affect the normal operation of long electrical conductor systems such a ...
was observed on telegraph lines in 1848 during the first
sunspot peak after the network began to take shape. Ronalds endeavoured to employ his atmospheric electricity equipment and magnetographs in a detailed study to understand the cause of the anomalies but had insufficient resources to complete his work.
Last years
Ronalds' final foreign sojourn in 1853–1862 was to northern Italy, Switzerland and France, where he assisted other observatories in building and installing his meteorological instruments and continued collecting books for his library. Some of his ideas documented in this period concerned electric lighting and a
combined rudder and propeller for ships that was honed in the 20th century.
He died at
Battle
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...
, near Hastings, aged 85, and is buried in the cemetery there. The Ronalds Library was bequeathed to the newly formed Society of Telegraph Engineers (soon to become the Institution of Electrical Engineers and now the
Institution of Engineering and Technology
The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a multidisciplinary professional engineering institution. The IET was formed in 2006 from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), dating back to 1871, and ...
) and its accompanying bibliography was reprinted by Cambridge University Press in 2013.
Ronalds had a very modest and retiring nature and did little to publicise his work through his life. During his last years, however, his key accomplishments became well known and revered in the scientific community, aided in particular by his friends
Josiah Latimer Clark and
Edward Sabine
Sir Edward Sabine ( ; 14 October 1788 – 26 June 1883) was an Irish astronomer, geophysicist, ornithologist, explorer, soldier and the 30th president of the Royal Society.
He led the effort to establish a system of magnetic observatories in ...
and his brother-in-law
Samuel Carter. He was knighted at the age of 82. Colleagues at the Society of Telegraph Engineers regarded him as "the father of electric telegraphy", while his continuously recording camera was noted to be "of extreme importance to meteorologists and physicists, and… employed in all first-rate observatories". His portrait was painted by
Hugh Carter. Commemorative plaques have been installed on two of his former homes in
Highbury
Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington
in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads.
The manor house was sit ...
and
Hammersmith, and a road was named after him in Highbury.
Ronalds Point in
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
is named after him.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ronalds, Francis
1788 births
1873 deaths
English electrical engineers
English inventors
Experimental physicists
English meteorologists
19th-century English photographers
English archaeologists
Fellows of the Royal Society
Knights Bachelor
Scientists from London
Engineers from London
Photographers from London
British scientific instrument makers
English Unitarians