Deabate Over Who Invented First Phone Hushed Up For 50 Years

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 12-1-2003 | Roger Highfield

[blam]

Debate over who invented first phone hushed up for 50 years

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 01/12/2003)

Evidence of a 50-year-old cover-up to curb public debate over whether a German science teacher invented the first telephone rather than the Scot Alexander Graham Bell has been discovered in the Science Museum, London.

Alexander Graham Bell

Tests conducted after the Second World War on a primitive German telephone that predates Bell's by 13 years were suppressed by a prominent businessman, ensuring that there would be no debate over whether the Scot really deserved to be called the father of modern communications.

Previously unseen documents show how experiments conducted in 1947 on a range of phones revealed that a device developed by Philipp Reis (1834-1874) - from an earlier version based on sausage skin - actually worked, said John Liffen, Science Museum curator.

Engineers from the British firm Standard Telephones and Cables (STC) found that Reis's 1863 "Telephon" could transmit speech, albeit faintly, and that his receiver would also "reproduce speech of good quality but of low efficiency".

But Sir Frank Gill, chairman of STC, ordered that the tests were kept secret.

STC was at the time attempting to win a deal with the American Telephone and Telegraph company, which had evolved from the Bell Company, and Sir Frank thought the results could wreck his plans by reflecting badly on STC. The file, marked "confidential" and discovered by Mr Liffen at the Science Museum a few weeks ago, reveals the extent of the cover-up.

One memo, dated March 18, 1947, from Gerald Garratt, Mr Liffen's predecessor as the museum's curator of communications, describes how the STC reports were given to him "on the strict understanding that they will not be referred to publicly nor published without their permission".

He added: "The immediate reason for this reticence is that a commercial agreement is in the process of negotiation at the present time between STC and ATT - and the mutual relations would not be improved by any suggestion originating from STC that Graham Bell did not invent the telephone."

A subsequent letter from Garratt reveals how STC was so concerned about the results that it demanded all files relating to the Reis tests be returned. Garratt wrote: "I am frankly uneasy at all this secrecy . . . I am left with the thought that there is something so secret about them as to be a matter of first class public interest.

"You must know as well as I the old controversy 'Did Bell invent the telephone?' and I have here an unpublished manuscript of over 400 pages which proves pretty conclusively that he didn't.

"Does your anxiety to retrieve these reports rather suggest that you agree?"

All documents were eventually returned to the Science Museum in 1955 but their significance was only recognised when Mr Liffen stumbled across them a few weeks ago.

[jdege]

Yes, there were a number of people researching in the area - one, IIRC, filed his patent application only hours after Bell did.

In any case, what Bell did that mattered wasn't that he invented the telephone, but that he invented the telephone company.

There were other inventors, but it was Bell who created something that worked, and put it in everyone's home.

[Mr. Mojo]

[exit82]

Ma Reis just doesn't have that old familiar ring to it.

[Lizavetta]

Betcha they discover that the true inventor of the telephone was gay......or black......or a woman.

But we all know it was Gore.

[PoorMuttly]

It DOES explain the secret messages Muttly has been receiving from his Ballpark Hot Dogs, though.

Another mystery laid to rest.

[Montfort]

Actually, black scientists did invent a lot of neat things. I would love it if thse achievements would be touted more often, instead of having wall-to-wall discussion of victimology.

[arthurus]

Christopher Columbus was not the first to find America. The Vikings were here a thousand years ago. The Chinese beat him by 70 years. The Portuguese were in Puerto Rico in 1431, v.v. CC was the one who marketed it, who opened America up.

It does not matter that a German professor actually made a working instrument before AGB. Bell marketed his telephone. It is because Bell was a salesman and entrepreneur that the telephone became indispensible. The German professor had no impact on the world. Mr. Bell did.

[roadcat]

"In any case, what Bell did that mattered wasn't that he invented the telephone, but that he invented the telephone company. There were other inventors, but it was Bell who created something that worked, and put it in everyone's home."

I differ. I remember my teachers discussing this in a couple classes many years ago, that it was well known that Bell ripped off inventions from not only others but also his own staff and presented them to the public as his own. Bell may have put the telephone in everyone's home, but he didn't create it. He was prolific in filing for patents, that he had stolen or acquired from others on the cheap. (We have a modern day counterpart, in the name of Bill Gates.)

[Nick Danger]

[Verginius Rufus]

I'd be more willing to believe a report that Herr Reis invented the Reissverschluss.*

*German for "zipper."

[TheCrusader]

"I differ. I remember my teachers discussing this in a couple classes many years ago, that it was well known that Bell ripped off inventions from not only others but also his own staff and presented them to the public as his own."

Don't they teach anything good about American heros, inventors and pioneers anymore? Seems schools today get off on teaching that all the early American icons were either charletons, fakes, 2nd banana, evil, or inflated folk legends.

[ChefKeith]

Great tagline

"Damned the aerodynamics, I need more power Scotty!!!"

[PoorMuttly]

I eagerly await the day they do the same to Marconi.

(even though I knew his Grand-daughter...a nice lady)

[camas]

does it matter????

[gov_bean_ counter]

It is because Bell was a salesman and entrepreneur that the telephone became indispensible.

And so it goes...

A handfull of NASCAR drivers ran rings around Richard Petty, but they just don't look as good in that hat and the wrap around sunglasses.

[Enlightiator]

Also in the letter, it was noted that the first words uttered by phone were "Can you hear me now?"

[Enlightiator]

This is trivia, but the actual first words typed on the old Arapanet, which evolved into what we now know as the modern Internet, were:

"Am I logged on?"

That of course, as history has revealed, was none other than Al Gore, Father of the Internet. And now you know the rest of the story.

[DustyMoment]

I'm always suspicious of these "facts" that emerge from the depths of secrecy after all of the principals are dead. No one is around to debate or defend the truth.

This particular chestnut has been around for decades - and it isn't true. I've been in the telephony industry for about 30 years and the fact is . . . AGB invented the phone.

[JohnBovenmyer]

The Portuguese were in Puerto Rico in 1431

I've heard of the other pre-Columbian explorers, but this is news to me. Can you provide or link to more info on it?