Sir Charles Wheatstone FRS (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 displaying three-dimensional images), and the Playfair cipher (an encryption technique). However, Wheatstone is best known for his contributions in the development of the Wheatstone bridge, originally invented by Samuel Hunter Christie, which is used to measure an unknown electrical resistance, and as a major figure in the development of telegraphy.
Life
Charles Wheatstone was born in Barnwood, Gloucester. His father was a music-seller in the town, who moved to 128 Pall Mall, London,
four years later, becoming a teacher of the flute. Charles, the second
son, went to a village school, near Gloucester, and afterwards to
several institutions in London. One of them was in Kennington, and kept by a Mrs. Castlemaine, who was astonished at his rapid progress. From another he ran away, but was captured at Windsor,
not far from the theatre of his practical telegraph. As a boy he was
very shy and sensitive, liking well to retire into an attic, without any
other company than his own thoughts.
When he was about fourteen years old he was apprenticed to his uncle
and namesake, a maker and seller of musical instruments (such as the Wheatstone concertina),
at 436 Strand, London; but he showed little taste for handicraft or
business, and loved better to study books. His father encouraged him in
this, and finally took him out of the uncle's charge.
At the age of fifteen, Wheatstone translated French
poetry, and wrote two songs, one of which was given to his uncle, who
published it without knowing it as his nephew's composition. Some lines
of his on the lyre became the motto of an engraving by Bartolozzi. Small for his age, but with a fine brow, and intelligent blue eyes, he often visited an old book-stall in the vicinity of Pall Mall,
which was then a dilapidated and unpaved thoroughfare. Most of his
pocket-money was spent in purchasing the books which had taken his
fancy, whether fairy tales, history, or science. One day, to the
surprise of the bookseller, he coveted a volume on the discoveries of Volta in electricity,
but not having the price, he saved his pennies and secured the volume.
It was written in French, and so he was obliged to save again, until he
could buy a dictionary. Then he began to read the volume, and, with the
help of his elder brother, William, to repeat the experiments described
in it, with a home-made battery, in the scullery behind his father's
house. In constructing the battery, the boy philosophers ran short of
money to procure the requisite copper-plates. They had only a few copper
coins left. A happy thought occurred to Charles, who was the leading
spirit in these researches, 'We must use the pennies themselves,' said
he, and the battery was soon complete.
At Christchurch, Marylebone, on 12 February 1847, Wheatstone was married to Emma West. She was the daughter of a Taunton
tradesman, and of handsome appearance. She died in 1866, leaving a
family of five young children to his care. His domestic life was quiet
and uneventful.
Though silent and reserved in public, Wheatstone was a clear and
voluble talker in private, if taken on his favourite studies, and his
small but active person, his plain but intelligent countenance, was full
of animation. Sir Henry Taylor tells us that he once observed
Wheatstone at an evening party in Oxford earnestly holding forth to Lord
Palmerston on the capabilities of his telegraph. 'You don't say so!'
exclaimed the statesman. 'I must get you to tell that to the Lord
Chancellor.' And so saying, he fastened the electrician on Lord
Westbury, and effected his escape. A reminiscence of this interview may
have prompted Palmerston to remark that a time was coming when a
minister might be asked in Parliament if war had broken out in India,
and would reply, 'Wait a minute; I'll just telegraph to the
Governor-General, and let you know.'
Wheatstone was knighted in 1868, after his completion of the
automatic telegraph. He had previously been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
Some thirty-four distinctions and diplomas of home or foreign societies
bore witness to his scientific reputation. Since 1836 he had been a
Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1859 he was elected a foreign member
of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and in 1873 a Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences.
The same year he was awarded the Ampere Medal by the French Society for
the Encouragement of National Industry. In 1875 he was created an
honorary member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was a D.C.L.
of Oxford and an LL.D. of Cambridge.
While on a visit to Paris during the autumn of 1875, and engaged in
perfecting his receiving instrument for submarine cables, he caught a
cold, which produced inflammation of the lungs, an illness from which he
died in Paris, on 19 October 1875. A memorial service was held in the
Anglican Chapel, Paris, and attended by a deputation of the Academy. His
remains were taken to his home in Park Crescent, London, (marked by a
blue plaque today) and buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.