Details

Ronalds Collection

UK0108 SC MSS 001

1818-1871

9 archive boxes

English.

Francis Ronalds was born in London in 1788, the son of a London merchant. When Ronalds was nineteen his father died, and he became responsible for the family business. However, Ronalds was far more interested in carrying out chemical experiments - these were mainly done at his home. In 1814, he met the Swiss natural philosopher De Luc, who was engaged on experiments with dry piles of gilt paper and laminated zinc. Ronalds subsequently constructed a dry column of 1,000 pairs of elements to which he added a ratchet and pawl arrangement by which the pile produced rotation of a pointer round a dial. It was in 1816 that he demonstrated his electric telegraph; he offered it to the Government but it was subsequently rejected by the Admiralty. The telegraph was described in a small booklet published by Ronalds in 1823. A single-wire telegraph operated by frictional electricity, it was perfectly practical, though never tried out on a commercial scale. Ronalds went abroad to Europe and the Near East between 1816 and 1823. Whilst on a sketching tour of Sicily with Sir Frederick Henniker he realised the need for mechanical sketching instruments; cameras were of course not yet available for travellers. Between 1824 and 1828 Ronalds devoted himself to designing perspective instruments. In 1825 he took out a patent for 'Apparatus for tracing from Nature' and in 1828 he published a book on 'Mechanical Perspective'. Ronalds was asked to exhibit at the Polytechnic Institution in London. These exhibits indicate the scope of Ronalds' inventions: they included a new fore-bed carriage, a semi-transparent sundial showing mean time, perspective instruments and a fire alarm. In 1843 Ronalds was appointed first Honorary Director and Superintendent of the British Association's Meteorological Observatory at Kew. Whilst there he improved the apparatus and methods of measurement relating to atmospheric electricity and also devised a system of applying photography to self-registration of meteorological and magnetic observations. Later similar apparatus was installed in observatories at Toronto, Madrid, Oxford and elsewhere. Ronalds left Kew in 1852. He spent a number of years abroad, travelling mainly in France and Italy, compiling a bibliography of electricity and magnetism and collecting books and pamphlets on these subjects. In 1870 Ronalds was knighted. This honour came at the end of a protracted campaign by his friends to secure some credit for Ronalds for his pioneering work in relation to the development of the electric telegraph. Ronalds died at Battle, Sussex in 1873.

Telegraphy, Telegraph equipment

Open

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