Printing Telegraphs for Police Communications
| Author | F. W. Abbott |
| Published date | 01 July 1931 |
| Date | 01 July 1931 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3100400308 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Printing Telegraphs for Police
Communications
By F. W. ABBOTT, M.V.O., M.B.E.
Chief Constable, Metropolitan Police
NEARLY a century ago, when Samuel F. B. Morse in
America and Charles Wheatstone in England were strug-
gling to convince an unbelieving and apathetic world that the
electric telegraph could be something more than an interesting
scientific toy, a circumstance occurred which focussed public
attention in dramatic fashion upon the new invention.
In
1845,shortly after Wheatstone had prevailed upon the
Great Western Railway to instal his apparatus on their lines
between London and Slough, a murder was committed at
Salthill near Slough.
The
police at Slough availed themselves
of Wheatstone's new telegraph to send to Paddington the
description of a suspect who had been seen to takea 7.30 train
from Slough to London. On arrival the man was followed
to a lodging-house in Cannon Street where, to his great sur-
prise, he was promptly arrested.
In
due course he was tried,
found guilty, and hanged. This first practical use of the new
means of communication by the police for the apprehension
of a criminal aroused public interest to a high degree, and
served to establish definitely the value of the electric telegraph
as a public utility of the first importance.
Since that time the efforts of a host of research workers
and inventors have resulted in the development of various
types of highly efficient printing telegraph machines, which
have found their principal application in the public telegraph
services, such apparatus being usually of costly construction
and requiring highly trained operators as well as skilled
engineering attention.
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