21 Facts About Francis Ronalds

Sir Francis Ronalds FRS was an English scientist and inventor, and arguably the first electrical engineer.

Francis Ronalds was knighted for creating the first working electric telegraph over a substantial distance.

Nurseryman Hugh Francis Ronalds was his uncle, and his nephews included chemistry professor Edmund Francis Ronalds, artist Hugh Carter, barrister John Corrie Carter and timber merchant and benefactor James Montgomrey.

Francis Ronalds was conducting electrical experiments by 1810: those on atmospheric electricity were outlined in George Singer's text Elements of Electricity and Electro-Chemistry.

Francis Ronalds 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-Andre Deluc helped to develop.

Francis Ronalds was already creating what would become the renowned Ronalds Library of electrical books and managing his collection with perhaps the first practical card catalogue.

Francis Ronalds' most remembered work today is the electric telegraph he created at the age of 28.

Francis Ronalds 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.

Francis Ronalds found that the signal travelled immeasurably fast from one end to the other.

Francis Ronalds complemented his vision with a working telegraph system built in and under his mother's garden at Hammersmith.

Francis Ronalds next focused on mechanical and civil engineering and design.

Francis Ronalds invented a forerunner to the fire finder patented in 1915 to pinpoint the location of a fire and various accessories for the lathe.

Francis Ronalds created the ubiquitous portable tripod stand with three pairs of hinged legs to support his drawing board in the field.

Francis Ronalds manufactured these instruments himself and several hundred of them were sold.

Francis Ronalds set up the Kew Observatory for the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1842 and he remained Honorary Director of the facility until late 1853.

Francis Ronalds applied his technique in electrographs to observe atmospheric electricity, barographs and thermo-hygrographs to monitor the weather, and magnetographs to record the three components of geomagnetic force.

Francis Ronalds supervised the manufacture of his instruments for other observatories around the world and some continued in use until late in the 20th century.

Francis 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.

Francis Ronalds died at Battle, near Hastings, aged 85, and is buried in the cemetery there.

The Francis Ronalds Library was bequeathed to the newly formed Society of Telegraph Engineers and its accompanying bibliography was reprinted by Cambridge University Press in 2013.

Francis Ronalds had a very modest and retiring nature and did little to publicise his work through his life.